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Kolkata/Lalgarh: Medha Patkar and Gopal Menon along with eleven human rights activists were arrested at the Barmulla toll plaza on National Highway No. 6 near Debra in West Midnapore on their way to Lalgarh on July 3.
Other rights activists arrested included Sujato Bhadra, Puspa Raj, Shipra Chowdhury and Amitdyuti Kumar. They sat on dharna on NH-6, asking why police detained them.
Additional Superintendent of Police Pranab Kumar came with a huge force and arrested the demonstrators. Police allegedly disrupted the rights workers and lathicharged the crowd.
Sujato Bhadra, a senior member of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights said, “We wanted to know why police detained us near Debra? As there was no law and order problem in Debra which is 65km from Lalgarh, police did not use Section 144 here. Police heckled and arrested us without showing any warrant or memo, except to Gopal Menon. We have already moved Calcutta High Court against this illegal detention. Probably, we will get bail on personal bond.”
Medha added, “I was ready for such behaviour. They have been misbehaving with me since Singur and Nandigram. But we will raise the issue at international forum. If police had suspected our entering Lalgarh, they could have arrested us in Lalgarh itself. Why did police lathicharge innocent people and one journalist?”
Home secretary Ardhendu Sen said that police waved down their cars initially and prevented them from going to Lalgarh. Sen said, “But they tried to ignore the prohibitory order and go ahead. They were thus arrested under Section 143 relating to unlawful assembly and released later.”
In the meantime, state Director-General of Police Bhupinder Singh landed in Lalgarh on Friday with DG CRPF A.S. Gill and spent nearly two hours with his colleagues, chalking out plans for the next phase of the operation.
According to the sources, they spoke to state government officials, Sourav Das and Barun Roy, about proceeding with Operation Lalgarh as well as restoring administrative machinery.
A CRPF officer stated, “The coming days will be more difficult for us to enter the villages, surrounded by dense forests. For, during monsoon, it will be suicidal to move along the unknown forest roads, which are nothing short of a minefield.”
The officers prefer to camp in the war zone for a couple of months for the monsoon to end and utilise the time to revive the information network.
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Posted On : 06 Jul 09
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