ML to honour kin of 'martyrs'

PATNA: Perhaps for the first time, hundreds of family members of those who laid down their lives in the course of nearly three decades of revolutionary peasant struggle in Bihar, will be honoured here at Gandhi Maidan on November 30, the concluding day of the seventh congress of the CPI-ML.
The party has compiled an exhaustive list of "unsung heroes of the Naxalite movement in Bihar from 1970-2002" in order to invite their kin for the party''s mega show on November 30. The party has printed at least 1,000 invitation cards exclusively for them. The district units of the party have been assigned the job of handing over these cards to the kin of "martyrs" within a week. Says party''s state secretary Ram Jatan Sharma, "This would be the first occasion when the family members of ''martyred comrades'' would be assembled under one roof."
During the last five years, at least 350 party cadres have been killed in differtent parts of Bihar alone.
The family members of some prominent party leaders, like Jagdish Prasad, popularly known as Master Saheb, Nirmal Mahto, Kesho, Sahato and Jiut (all from Bhojpur), Birda Manjhi (Punpun), Sudhir Ranjan (central committee member), Ram Das Yadav (Khagaul), Brajesh Mohan Thakur and Guneshwar Mahto (both Begusarai), Maheshwar Bhagat (Naugachhia) would be the star attractions at the Gandhi maidan.
Jagdish Master was a founder leader of the party in Bhojpur and an architect of the Bhojpur peasant uprising. At the time of "martyrdom", Master Saheb was a member of the Bihar state committee of the party. Another important party hero, Nirmal Mahto, was a brilliant student of Science College, Patna. After being attracted to communism, he was instrumental in organising students. He embraced "martyrdom" during 1975.
Brajesh Mohan Thakur, a resident of Meghol village in Begusarai district, was killed by landlords of Purnia district at the young age of 24 during 1985. Premchandra Ram alias Kesho was the first member of the armed guerilla unit of the party in Bhojpur.
The party has invited several prominent personalities, including Mahasweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Sandip Pandey, Rajendra Singh Sachchar, Praful Bidwai and Anand Patwardhan to attend the opening session.