Jail shield rethink after Red threat

KOLKATA: Worried about a Maoist strikeback to avenge their leader Somen’s arrest, the state home department has asked district authorities to conduct a survey of jails and suggest measures to beef up security.

District officials have been asked to inspect perimeter walls and raise the height immediately at all places where the walls are less than 18 feet high.

The additional district magistrate of Hooghly has already visited the district and sub-jails at Arambag, Serampore, Hooghly (Sadar) and Chandernagore. In his report to the home department, he has expressed concern over the condition of Arambag jail, which reportedly has more prisoners than it can accommodate. This might lead to trouble inside the jail, the report mentioned.

All of these measures are being taken as police have information that Maoists are planning a major strike outside their Jangalkhand stronghold in the lead-up to the panchayat polls.

Security agencies say the target could be areas of Nadia and Hooghly bordering West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia. Police have reasons to believe that Maoists are taking shelter in some places in Hooghly such as Uttarpara, Tarakeswar, Jangipara and Dadpur.

Much of this information was extracted out of supporters of Naxalite factions such as Shramik Sangram Committee (SSC), who were nabbed recently.

Arms recovered - as in Hooghly in 2006 - show that the extremists are trying their best to extend their network outside their strongholds. Police claim the arms found in Hooghly might have been left behind by Maoists who had entered the Arambag area from the Kotulpur area in Bankura.

Trade unions sympathetic to the Maoist cause have also gained massive support among the retrenched workers of factories in the Hooghly belt.

State police are also conducting combing operations in Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore to flush out Maoists.