JOIN USPeople from Junglemahal, now imprisoned for alleged links with Maoists, can finally walk out of their pitiful existence if they promise to work for the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
TMC has offered to take up their case if the prisoners sign an undertaking agreeing to work for the party after their release. The undertaking, addressed to the chief minister, reads: “From 2006, I have been actively working for TMC-supported committee for the protection of agricultural land. So the previous Left Front Government slapped false charges against me.”
“You promised to release the political prisoners after you come to power. So I would like to request you to withdraw the false cases against me and allow me to become a part of your political development,” the undertaking read.
The gesture is being perceived as TMC’s ploy to mobilise the electorate ahead of the panchayat polls. Incidentally, even after an year of assuming charge as the West Bengal chief minister, Banerjee is yet to realise her promise of freeing all political prisoners.
Responding to the populist gesture, a Congress leader said: “This will become a main issue in the panchayat polls of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore because thousands of people are languishing in jails without any trail. In many cases they are not even allowed to move the bail petition.”
Ranjit Sur, a human rights activist striving to secure freedom for these prisoners, told Deccan Herald: “This kind of an undertaking is totally anti-democratic and we strongly protest it.”
Refuting all charges, Suvendu Adhikary, a TMC legislator from the Junglemahal area said: “People are frustrated with the Maoists and the CPM. So they are coming to our party spontaneously. We are giving the people of the Junglemahal a better life and a clean administration.”
After Baenrjee was sworn in as the chief minister in June 2011, a 13-member review committee headed by retd justice Moloy Sengupta started working on the release of the prisoners and submitted three lists recommending the release of 350 prisoners.
“So far the government has only released 30 political prisoners of which seven are Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) activists and 23 are Greater Kuchbehear Movement activists. Not a single prisoner of the Lalgarh movement is released,” Sur said.