Jangalmahal

Security has been stepped up for the penultimate fourth phase Lok Sabha poll in West Bengal on Wednesday as four of the six seats going to the poll fall in Jangalmahal where the Maoists ruled till recently.

Election Commission has made elaborate security arrangement for the Jangalmahal area during the fourth phase of polls on May 7 in West Bengal with deployment of central forces, helicopters, Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad and anti-landmine device, officials said today.

Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused CPI(M) and Congress of trying to bring back Maoist violence in Jangalmahal region and vowed she will not allow the Naxals to return to the area.

Maoists are regrouping in tribal Jangalmahal area of Bankura ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to disrupt elections, Bankura superintendent of police Mukesh Kumar said Thursday.

West Bengal government has initiated stringent steps to forestall any threat of Maoist ultras.

In view of the renewed Maoist activity in Bihar, the Centre has decided to send six additional companies of central forces for deployment in Jangalmahal.

There is a "high probability" of political leaders coming under a Chhattisgarh-type attack during their panchayat poll campaign in Maoist-hit Jangalmahal in West Bengal, intelligence sources have indicated.

Maoists are regrouping in West Bengal`s Jangalmahal area, where peace prevailed for more than a year.

Days after he rapped Mamata Banerjee`s government for political clashes, West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan praised it for bringing changes in state`s law and order situation alongside development.

Security forces were on alert at West Bengal`s Jhargram and elsewhere one year after death of Maoist leader Koteswar Rao alias `Kishenji` in encounter at Jangalmahal area of West Midnapore with CRPF.

In the first incident of killing in Maoist-hit Jangalmahal this year, one Trinamool Congress worker was hacked to death by some miscreants.

Mamata Banerjee may have claimed that her govt has broken new ground in development initiatives, but Leader of the Opposition in WB Assembly Suryakanta Mishra said the claims were just "blatant lies".

The Maoists have for the first time admitted that Kishenji`s death has dealt a heavy blow to their organisation.

Pushing for development in Naxal
strongholds, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh will be visiting
Jangalmahal along with West Bengal CM Mamata
Banerjee.

West Bengal is determined to drive out armed men from Maoist-infested areas in Jangalmahal and bring back peace, TC MP Subhendu Adhikari said.

Fearing alienation, Naxals have begun holding classes and distributing medicines in their bastions in West Bengal.

Civil society members here
have sent a memorandum to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee demanding the setting up of an autonomous council.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee on Monday left for a two-day visit to Maoist-hit
Jangalmahal.

Security forces on Sunday claimed
to have foiled a plan by Maoists to launch an attack in
Jangalmahal, after seizing arms and ammunition from a forest
near here.

Life in the tribal Jangalmahal districts of West Bengal was paralysed Tuesday on the first day of a 48-hour bandh called by Maoist frontal organisation People`s Committee Against Police Atrocities.