Lalgarh, June 26: A mud hut and a tin shed, with a dish antenna and TV set that look rather incongruous in these surroundings. This is the only office of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities in the entire Lalgarh region.
Barapelia, a Maoist stronghold 4km north of Lalgarh town, is where the police expect the first major resistance when they march to Ramgarh via Kantapahari. But the committee office there is almost deserted today.
Only a few young men are watching the news on the security forces’ operation on the TV set. Now they too are ready to leave. They quickly climb onto their motorbikes to relay the news to their “leaders” hiding in the nearby jungles.
“We are committee supporters,” explains Subhas Tudu, face covered with a piece of cloth. “We know a police attack is imminent. So we are tracking police movements on the channels and conveying it to our leaders.”
The committee installed the TV set only yesterday, we are told. “The committee members and leaders have left Barapelia and gone into the jungles as the police will target them first,” Tudu says.
The 12km Lalgarh-Ramgarh road has been dug up at seven places. Barapelia, the first major stop, looks as deserted as the committee office. Everyone seems to have moved into makeshift shelters inside the jungles.
The police believe that these clusters are where the Maoist guerrillas are also billeted. “We have information that once we march ahead, the Maoists will crawl out of the jungles to attack us,” an officer said.
Riding our motorcycle up towards Kantapahari, we veer off the main road to take the kachcha track to Chhotopelia, where an improvised explosive device killed a CPM leader a few months ago.
Chhotopelia too looks at least partially deserted. Suddenly, a group of men, faces covered, appear out of thin air at the edge of the village.
“You can’t go any further,” one of them says. “There is no one inside. Go away.”
The warning is repeated everywhere we stop, barring us from entering localities or interacting with people. It’s because “armed Maoists are holed up” inside the villages and towns, the police claim.
The scene is the same 1km ahead of Barapelia, at Kantapahari, the only town between Lalgarh and Ramgarh. The shops are shut and the people have fled. The only populated place is a relief camp the committee has set up at the Kantapahari Vivekananda High School. But there are only women and children here.
It was the headmaster of this school, Asim Ganguly, who had protested against the arrest of two students after the mine blast on the chief minister’s route last November. Ganguly too has fled.
On the 7km stretch from Kantapahari to Ramgarh, we make two halts. The first is a large roadside poultry farm. We are stopped again. The police claim that 70 to 80 armed Maoists are sheltering there.
The next is Khasjungle, where three tribals were shot dead in February, allegedly by CPM cadres. The charred shells of three police jeeps tell of the retaliation.
Again, masked men confront us. “Are you reporters?” one asks. “If you have finished your job, leave at once.” We do.
Twenty minutes later we reach Ramgarh, threading our motorcycle around tree trunks on the road.
It’s a ghost town. Everything is shut and no one seems around. We venture into the charred police outpost. Still, there’s no one.
Then five figures emerge from the shadows, their faces, as expected by now, covered. “What are you doing here?” one of them shouts.
Told we are journalists, a crisp note enters his voice. “Leave at once. You can’t stay a moment in Ramgarh.”
We climb onto our bike. The apparently empty houses look more eerie as we wonder about the police claim that they are manned by guerrillas, waiting for the battle to start — a claim the masked men wouldn’t let us verify.
The feeling deepens as we take a different route out of the town, passing through nearby villages. We see people roaming around openly with rifles slung across their shoulders. Away from the main road, the need for stealth too seems to have dropped away.
