Mamata: State will burn if intellectuals ‘touched’

Recently,names of intellectuals,including Saonli Mitra and Mahasweta Devi,members of the Lalgarh Sanhati Manch,had come up in the context of having “links” with Mahato and the PCAPA in Lalgarh.

“They are playing with fire,” the Union Railway Minister said,warning against such a move. “People will answer them. We are also ready to give them a reply if Bengal’s intellectuals are touched. Nobody will be able to control the fire.” Drawing a line between the Maoist movement and the tribal agitation,she said those were two entirely different things. “The Lalgarh movement is a tribal agitation; it is entirely different from the Maoists. Those who are supporting the tribal agitation are right. We also supported the tribal agitation as atrocities were committed against them in Lalgarh,” Mamata told a Bengali news channel.

She also asked what was wrong in having links with the PCAPA. “Did the government ban the People’s Committee? No,” she said.

She saw something fishy in the entire sequence of Mahato’s arrest and what had followed. “During the Lok Sabha elections,the PCAPA had called for a vote boycott,which helped the Left win in Lalgarh. Various comments are coming from Writers’ Buildings now. But these are the people who sat with Chhatradhar and hatched a conspiracy. Something fishy is going on,” she said.