Kolkata, Aug 21: Claiming "total success" for its call for a 24 hour shutdown in West Bengal, the Left Opposition Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) today warned of a two-day bandh in the state in October if the ruling Left Front persisted with its 'misrule'. Accusing the CPI(M) of attempting to break the bandh in collusion with the police, SUCI state secretary Pravas Hosh told reporters that the police arrested 1,285 SUCI activists, "used lathis, manhandled workers and even molested women volunteers at Hazra in south Kolkata and at Bishalgarh in North 24 Parganas district".
Ghosh demanded that chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee personally look into the 'police atrocities' on SUCI women activists during the bandh.
He said that the state government ran buses, but could not find passengers "since people have lent the fullest support to our bandh much to the chagrin of the Left Front.

"If the LF government fails to reverse its anti-people stand, we will seriously consider calling a 48-hour bandh in the state to realise our demands," he said.

The party, he said, would also raise a 'volunteer force to enforce bandhs in future' and to carry on a prolonged agitation against 'Left Front misrule'.
SUCI, as also the naxalite faction CPI(ML-Liberation), separately called the bandh to protest the hike in hospital charge, power tariff, land tax and educational fees, besides the 'anti-people' policies of the state government.
Bureau Report