Gave enough time to Maoists, will chase them away: Mamata

With suspected Maoists gunning down two Trinamool workers in Purulia district, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday dismissed the Maoist letter on their ceasefire withdrawal and said joint-operations would be intensified against the ultras.

"Murderers would not be spared. We will surmount the Maoists and snatch their guns. Joint operations would begin. My government has given them five-month time (by suspending the joint operations)," Banerjee told a regional news channel condemning the killing of two party workers at Balarampur on Monday evening.

"We do not want to give importance to such a letter. I thought they (Maoists) would tread the democratic path. We do not know who they are. Can you recognise the men who move with their faces covered in black clothes? Who are this Akash (the state secretary of Communist Party of India-Maoist or Batash?" she pointed.

Her comment came as the Maoist state secretary in a letter to one of the government-appointed interlocutors said, "As there was no official communication to our letter and demands either from you or the government, so the tenure of the agreement ends."

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The letter, written on October 31, came just a month after an agreement was signed between Maoists and interlocutors. The two sides had agreed to maintain ceasefire, provided the government suspended the joint forces' operation for a month.

The killing of the two Trinamool Congress workers came two days after Banerjee addressed a rally at Balarampur in the Maoist-hit Purulia district.

She described the Maoists as "terrorists, murderers, jungle mafia and supari killers". "I don't support those who believe in the politics of murder...Even if they may be from Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party or Maoists," she said.

Banerjee also launched a tirade against the "Maoists sympathisers" operating from Kolkata, including "two Jadavpur University professors".

"Those who are trying to glorify the Maoists would be arrested," she said and cautioned the people against 'All Bengal Students Union' and 'Matangini Brigade' which she claimed were working at their behest.

"They shed tear for the Maoists, why don't they shed a single drop of tear for the poor people who are being murdered? Do the latter has no right to live?" she asked.

The Centre has banned the Maoists. Action would be taken against those who would be supporting them and colluding with them, she said.

"These few people from Kolkata prepare the blueprint from the city. They are helping them with money. They will not be spared and they would be arrested. Law would take its own course," the chief minister said.

The bodies of the slain Trinamool Congress workers will be brought to Kolkata on Monday and a mourning procession would be held from College Square to condemn the killing, Banerjee said.

The CM said Maoism was being used by some people who were engaged in killings, loot and extortion. "They are killing people in the name of Maoism. We are against killings. I have already urged them to abjure violence and join the mainstream or else people will chase them away," she said.

Expressing her government's determination to firmly deal the Maoist violence, she said, "If we, with the help of the people, can drive out CPI-M from power after 34 years of its misrule, we will also free the state from the Maoist menace. They are killing because they are alienated from the people."

Banerjee said she had given enough time to the ultras to come to the talks table and lay down arms with the expectation that they would see "good sense".

"For five months, I had stopped operations against them. But that did not help. They are kidnapping businessmen and extorting money in industrial areas," she said.

Lashing out at the Maoist sympathisers, she said that they were also trying to penetrate into the labour unions as also in the college unions by "misguiding" the people and students.

She accused the Maoists of maintaining nexus with the CPI-M.  "I have always said that there is a nexus between the Maoists and CPI-M," Banerjee said.