Lalgarh, West Bengal: It seems to have become an open war between the Left and the extreme Left in some parts of West Bengal and for the moment the Maoists seem to have the upper hand.
But there will soon be an offensive, the West Bengal Home Secretary announced on Wednesday.
The epicentre of the clashes is in Lalgarh where the Maoists are freely running a campaign of intimidation. Many CPM activists have been killed and the Centre is now rushing Special Forces.
West Bengal government has warned Maoists against using villagers as human shields.
Maoists carrying AK-47 rifles on Wednesday patrolled the roads here and formed a human shield comprising women and children vowing to prevent storming of the area by security forces as a fresh upsurge of violence killed a CPM leader and two party activists.
Having taken over the area after forcing the police out, agitating tribals, backed by Maoists, dug up the roads at several places and blocked roads with more than 100 tree trunks to obstruct movement as 2,100 paramilitary forces, including a special force raised to combat Left-wing extremists reached Jhargram, near Lalgarh.
The Maoists armed with AK-47 rifles manned the roads between Lalgarh and Belpahari, another Naxal-infested area, and erected a three-tier human shield by using children and women, a senior police official said.
Approachable from four directions by metalled and mud roads, Lalgarh remained cut-off from three sides after tribals torched the police stations and ransacked the houses of local CPM leaders and took over the entire area.
Alarmed by the continued violence, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday asked West Bengal government to move security forces to Lalgarh. He suggested the state government appeared to be divided over whether to send the security forces to reclaim Maoist-held areas. (With PTI inputs)