KOLKATA: The arrest of CPI (Maoist)'s West Bengal in-charge Sabyasachi Goswami alias Kishor, who figured in the list of most wanted fugitives by the NIA and others states’ police, has revealed the outlawed outfit’s footprints in the minority-dominated pockets of Murshidabad and Nadia districts besides in Junglemahal, a backward region in the western part of the state which had witnessed a bloodbath over a decade ago.
The Bengal police, who pursued Goswami and arrested him from Purulia and interrogated him, learnt that the CPI (Maoist) have made penetrations among the minorities in Murshidabad, and Nadia, a newly included zone in the Maoists’ operational landscape, since 2019. They used the minorities' grievances against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which the Centre initiated after the 2019 general elections.
“Goswami’s interrogation revealed that the banned outfit has set up a base in many pockets in the two India-Bangladesh border districts, Murshidabad and Nadia, as the Muslims in these areas strongly opposed the CAA. He and his followers managed to take minority villagers into confidence and used many villages to take refuge and as corridors for the secret movement of the operatives of the organisation,” said a cop.
Many frontal organisations like Sangrami Krishak Mancha came up to hold mass movements on several local issues under Goswami’s leadership.
“In a recent letter to an underground operative of the outlawed outfit, Goswami also mentioned the names of a few who are assigned to secretly organise open meetings under the banner of frontal organisations in the two bordering districts,” the cop added.