Andolanjeevis and leftist with their encharged chest leave no opportunity to bring out the myth that under Communist rule there has been no riots or genocide which harldy holds any mole of truth. Marichjhapi massacre crumbles down this impregnable bastion of myth.

The year was 1979 when Communists intimated the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The communists mercilessly masaccred Dalit Bengalis. The masaccre came to be known as Marichjhapi massacre. It was a Jallianwala Bagh-like situation. Several West Bengal Police patrol boats and two BSF steamers encircled an island in the Sundarbans on 26 January 1979 and ruthlessly ‘enforced’ an economic blockade. That island was called Marichjhapi. On 31 January, when the islanders protested, they were fired at. This went on for days. Many say 5,000 to 10,000 people, including children, were killed. Jyoti Basu’s information minister at the time, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, announced that the island had been cleared of ‘illegal occupants’. It was one of the worst massacres independent India had witnessed. But it was buried successfully by the Left government. Almost forty years later, the wounds of the Marichjhapi Bengali refugees came to be highlighted. The Communist Party which talks about Dalits in order to hold to the Dalit vote bank should open their eyes to see the heinous act it commited against Dalits.

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