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Uneasy calm in Jangalmahal
It could be psychological yet one could feel a nauseating reek of blood and gunpowder. More than 20 hours have elapsed but the ground beneath is still soaked in blood dried up and darkened; flies hovering around.
By a mound lay the blown up body of Kishenji who terrorised Jangalmahal and neighbouring Jharkhand — nay the security forces for his uncanny ability to slip in and out of the wooded villages at will — for more than half-a-decade before dying by the gun as he lived by.
“He was firing with venom from behind this mound. He did not give up even when asked to surrender. Then we charged mortar which perhaps neutralised him after which our boys rained bullets,” said a CRPF official trying to guard a hard disc some documents a ladies’ purse reportedly belonging to Suchitra Mahato, a close accomplice of Kishenji, recovered from the site.
The area is comparatively clear: about a few hundred square metre, some 500 metre away from the main road. “It is still not clear why a master strategist like him entered Bengal at a time when the CPI(Maoists) were losing the organisational glue as recovery of hundreds of kgs of explosives and arms from the forests would indicate,” wondered a senior police officer.
According to sources, Kishenji slipped into Bengal on Tuesday. Before this he had a meeting with party colleague Sabyasachi Panda in Orissa discussing the latter’s entry into the politburo.
Even the security forces are at a loss to explain his re-entry in Bengal at a time when the party is fast losing its grip among the people. According to Nemai Mahato, a PCPA leader he came on a peace mission with Mamata Banerjee Government but his “military commanders” like Jayanta and Ranjit Pal made things bad by bumping off Trinamool workers. The second theory says he took the “great risk” to give a desperate attempt to tone up the sagging organisational network in the State. A third explanation blames his towering ambition to retain his supremacy in the party circles.
“He was under pressure to explain the loss of support in Bengal. In fact the series of mindless killings in the jangalmahal for the past few years had not been appreciated by the central committee.
“It is still not sinking in. That finally we have hit the target!” the CRPF official says wondering how the Maoist top gun led the security forces to merry dance in the region for the past half-a-decade. He could well have repeated his feat had it not been for a chance interruption of a call purportedly made by Kishenji to his Jharkhand comrades demanding “urgent reinforcements” in order to break through the cordon thrown around by the CRPF.
The call led to the house of one Dharmendra Mahato alias Chandan, a college student at Gosainbandh. “We recovered a laptop, some letters dated as late as Tuesday making us sure of his presence.”
Curiously a day after security forces gunned down the top Maoist military strategist inside the Burishole forests a blood curdling calm prevails over a dozen of hamlets nestled in 10 km radius even as CPI(Moist) State secretary called a 48-hour Bengal bandh from Saturday protesting the Thursday’s “fake encounter” which was summarily rejected by the security forces.
Rejecting the allegation, CRPF DG Vijay Kumar said: “When our men are killed by the Maoists no question is raised but when we take them on the encounter is called fake. I am not surprised by the remarks,” adding “the information that I have with me I can say that I am 99 per cent confident that the encounter is genuine.”
The jangalmahal would, however, not utter a word. Not a bird would chatter let alone a man. Though quiet descends fast in winter over the woody land of jangalmhal, “we have seldom seen a deadly calm as this,” asserts Sona Tudu, a retired teacher who regularly shuttles between Gidhni and Jhumuria.
