INDIA: Bihar assembly besieged
Responding to a call by the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (Liberation), thousands of protesters staged a militant gherao (siege) of the assembly building in the poor, northern state of Bihar on July 11. Death squads employed by sections of the ruling elite have killed hundreds of poor peasants in the state.
The protesters demanded that the state government get serious about wiping out the Ranvir Sena, pressing for a time line for action. According to CPI-ML legislator Mahendra Prasad Singh, the Ranvir Sena, the militia of the Bhumihars (an upper caste), have carried out seven massacres, killing 465 people, since they were supposedly banned in 1995. The gang went on a killing spree in the Aurangabad district in June.
The protesters tried to encircle the assembly building from four points but were blocked by the police and tear-gassed. According to the July 12 edition of the Hindu, "After breaking the barricades, the demonstrators converged at the Martyrs Memorial, facing the Legislative complex, where they were addressed by the party general secretary".
A vicious baton charge resulted in head injuries for at least 100 protesters, according to the July 12 Times of India. Those injured included the party's general secretary, Dipankar Bhattacharya, who nevertheless told reporters "We've made our program a success".
As running battles occurred in the streets outside, inside the assembly Prasad Singh and fellow CPI-ML parliamentarian Raja Ram Singh condemned the police brutality, drawing out similar condemnations from members of other parties.
In the July 12 edition of its weekly newsletter, ML Update, the CPI-ML stated that it "has taken up an all-out programme to unleash particularly the rural poor's initiative to reassert their democratic rights and stand boldly on their own feet against the politics of massacre and press the government to come out with a white paper on links of Ranvir Sena with political parties and implement the ban on it seriously and fix the responsibility of massacres".
To contact the CPI-ML, email <cpimllib@bol.net.in>.
BY EVA CHENG