On March 1, 2002, utilizing the prevailing communal situation in the country, some persons led by one Rajman Kol and feudal landlords of village Chitori of Bara tehsil of Allahabad assembled at the house of Party activist Feroz at 9 am, while he was away, hurled distasteful abuses and threatened to kill him. The immediate issue related to their past dealings in which Rajman had to pay Feroz Rs 500 and in lieu of that Feroz had  picked up straw worth Rs 156 from Rajman. Few days before this event, Rajman’s son Tarkesh had beaten up one harijan boy for touching one villager’s food and the Party had organized the poor and made that same harijan boy give Tarkesh two slaps. Prior to  this the landlords had been expressing their anger with the Party and the poor for taking initiative to do their own propaganda and voting on their own in the Assembly elections. The benefits they drew out of ‘helping’ to settle the issues of dispute amongst the poor, also had slowly started dwindling due to the activity of the Party. Motivated by these very landlords and with the connivance of the local station officer, Tarkesh and Rajman went to Feroz’s house and picked up all the straw he had taken.

On receiving information of this attack from Feroz at the Party office, Com. Suresh immediately informed the thana. When the police did not move after repeated requests, Suresh, along with other comrades went to Feroz’s house with intention of settling the dispute and to give protection. The atmosphere was tense in the village from early in the morning as the landlords had been planning to attack and our local Party cadres had organized themselves in defensive position in their own bastis. On reaching Feroz’s house our comrades were attacked by these goondas with iron rods and sticks and Com. Suresh suffered grievous injuries in his head, foot and shoulder. The attack occurred even before our comrades in Chitori, whose dwellings are at some distance from the site of attack, could come to know that our comrades from the office have reached. As was revealed from the statements of the SO, Ghoorpur, this attack had been planned with the knowledge of the police itself, which reached Chitori immediately after this attack. Police lodged FIRs on its own from both sides and made it into a cross case. In the complaint of Rajman Kol, Party cadres were charged with rioting and setting property on fire and SC/ST act was invoked although more than half of those charged were SCs.

When state Secretary, Com. Ashish Mital reached the thana, the SO concerned misbehaved with him also, charged him with provoking riots, building Naxal movement, converting UP into Bihar, and then detained him in the thana for more than four hours. He sent Suresh to the hospital for treatment, but on the papers he portrayed that he had gone there on his own. Along with this, the landlords of Chitori began showing their worst; prevented poor people from using their fields for defecation, prevented shopkeepers from selling anything to the poor, prevented the poor from selling their milk, tried to force our comrades to give money and threatened to kill our leaders.

Party immediately established contact with the comrades in the village and encouraged them to stand steadfast, not to relent before the threats and make the villagers attend to their daily chores in groups. Democratic and civil liberty organizations in the city were contacted and requests were made before the police officials to register the complaint of Com. Suresh. The SSP was extremely negative and he was more concerned about why an ML party was being built when Marx and Lenin have both died. He ordered an enquiry only to complete his records.

Some women’s organizations of the city went to the village to enquire into this incident. They reassured the women of the poor households, took their complaint to the police officials, as a result of which the villagers gathered to face up to the repression. Attitude of the police remained negative throughout, although the media also gave a number of reports on this attack and the police atrocity. On March 11 party organized a big demonstration at the district headquarters and demanded suspension of the SO, registration of Com. Suresh’s complaint and arrest of the accused. People from all over the area participated and more than 400 persons attended the dharna.

In the court of law also, the police used unlawful methods to prevail upon the magistrate who was easily influenced and uncalled for delaying tactics were used. On the one hand police posted a guard at the hospital where Com. Suresh was admitted, on the other he was not shown to be under arrest in order to prevent him from obtaining bail. Not only this, an application had been filed in the court that Suresh was absconding and that attachment orders should be issued. The connivance between the police and the lower court could only be overcome by obtaining an order from the High Court for judicial custody.

To counter this attack on Com. Feroz’s house, our inability to bring together the struggling masses of the village resulted in giving the landlords a chance to attack us. Although, led by us, this area has only seen some immediate agitations against police atrocities, some complaints have been registered against landlords’ atrocities, some cordiality amongst the poor has been encouraged specially to prevent landlords from cheating them and some movements have been done against corruption by govt. employees. Yet the reaction of the police and administration has been rather sharp. Many policemen, while criticizing the Party, also criticized the ongoing movement in Nepal. Such a strong reaction of the police to even the early stages of attempts to defend the democratic rights of people shows that the system considers even early stages of such agitations to be a big challenge and the crises is so deep that the system is no longer in a position to fulfil even small democratic demands of the people. This means that even small agitations of the people may be forced into bigger fights and the struggles can last for longer durations. That is why it is necessary that before launching agitations, the political and organizational preparations should be done seriously and on a wide scale and failure to achieve success on some immediate issue in a struggle should not deter us. This reflects lack of preparedness to continue the fight.

Secondly, when on every small issue the people will be forced to fight against the whole system, it is necessary that the Party should organize the people on a wide range of issues covering all the democratic questions of the people. Then the system is exposed before the democratic people in a more complete manner and their preparation to fight is stronger.

This incident of attack on the Party cadres will certainly educate the party cadres on how to build new democratic revolutionary struggle and will build up the confidence of the people in the Party leadership.