Malda seeks police help to restore peace

Statesman News Service

MALDA, 5 OCT: Having failed to form a peace committee comprising dignified seniors and distinguished citizens of Kaliachak police station area, the Malda district administration has finally decided to seek help from political leaders and police, who they believe will take stern action to restore normalcy in Majampur and Narayanpur villages.

The Malda district magistrate, Mr Sridhar Ghosh said that the senior citizens had not shown much interest to involve themselves to restore peace by urging the criminals to surrender.

It may be noted that the district magistrate had earlier convened an all-political party and had adopted a resolution to form a peace committee that would help restore normalcy there.

“Some dignified persons said that they had urged the criminals backed by political parties to stop violence there earlier, but criminals did not pay heed to their words. Instead they exchanged fire and hurled bombs at each other despite several requests,” said Mr Ghosh.

According to Mr Ghosh, this is not a political clash but a clash between two groups of criminals; who may belong to different political parties. Thus, police would be the apt force to take action against the accused.

At present huge police forces, under the leadership of deputy superintendent of police and the additional SP, had been deployed and police were continuing raids in five villages to recover stock of arms, explosives and crude bombs in different places, close to the India-Bangladesh border.

During raids, police had recovered huge amounts of crude bombs from different areas including educational institutions since the last three days but could not arrest the accused criminals who were fighting against each other over the rights of the areas under Kaliachak and illegal trade to Bangladesh.

To evade police, not only the leaders of the criminals belonging to the CPI-M and the Congress fled their homes but all male members have left their families in five villages including Majampur and Narayanpur since the last eight days.

“Police are monitoring and tackling the situation with iron hands at Majampur and even Narayanpur,” said Mr Satyajit Bandyopadhyay, the Malda SP. (END)