The anti-CPI(M) conspiracy which had taken roots during the regime of the second United Front Government came out in the open after its collapse and more than 30 of our comrades were killed after the general strike which was observed on March 17 after Ajoybabu resigned as Chief Minister.

Durgapur became the focal point of major attacks and more than 60,000 workers of the industrial township began an indefinite strike on August 12,1970. More than 25,000 armed personnel, including those of the CRPF, BSF and the West Bengal State Police, were brought in to break the strike. Supplies to the township were cut off and prohibitory orders were imposed. CRPF men even entered hospitals and tried to stop doctors from treating injured labourers.

Sharecroppers and farmers were also made targets and village after village became virtual camps. Villages were first encircled, the men folk were singled out and then driven away like animals. The women were left to be either gangraped or shamed in any other possible way. After these ``guardians of the law’’ left, only ghost villages stood witness to the gruesome acts of terror. The tales of torture and attacks were never-ending. And they were true.

The teaching community and students were not spared either. One example will bring out the horror aptly. Forty-nine young students were rounded up in dawn raid at Beliaghata in Calcutta and four of them were shot dead in cold blood by the forces. The MISA and the PD Act were used indiscriminatingly against the teachers and students and many schools and colleges were closed indefinitely during that period for lack of proper security.

Everything was preplanned and the Congress did not stop from even using the Naxalites and the breakaway factions of the erstwhile United Front to try and annihilate the CPI(M). The Naxalites had become more and more disoriented after getting alienated from the people and were stooping to the level of attacking teachers and students in their desperation. The CPI(M) fought back against this anarchy and mindless violence. Our enemies thus made us their main target and fueled the Naxalites in their activities. On the one hand, they labelled the Naxalites as ``well-intentioned, brave young men’’, and on the other, pilloried us for attacking the Naxalites. All this, when the reality was quite the opposite.

The role of some of the former partners of the United Front was shameful’; they acted at the behest of the Congress to such an extent that finally their own identities got lost somewhere down the line and they ceased to exist as political parties in their own right.