Top Leaders of CPI Maoist Schedule Memorial for Comrade Somen to be Held on 8/29/2016

Two top Maoist leaders who are out on bail will host a public event in memory of Himadri Sen Roy alias Somen, former secretary of the CPI(Maoist) state committee who recently died, in the city on Monday. This is the first event that senior Maoist leaders are hosting in the city, though the reference to CPI(Maoist) was not used in any of the invitation letters, leaflets and posters used for the event.

“Himadri Sen Roy, a communist revolutionary for life, is no longer with us. He breathed his last on July 30 due to cancer, after suffering the painful life of a political prisoner for years. We are organising a condolence meeting on 29.08.2016 (Monday) at Bharat Sabha Hall to pay tribute to the man who dedicated his entire life for the people,” reads an invitation letter signed by Narayan Sanyal, Purnendu Sekhar Mukherjee and Chandi Sarkar.

Sanyal, was a member of the CPI (Maoist) politburo at the time of his arrest from Chhatisgarh in 2006. A first batch CPI(ML) member who has been a Maoist organiser since the late 1960s, he was released on bail on health grounds in 2014. He is suffering from cancer.

Mukherjee, a first batch Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) member, is a Maoist organizer since the late 1960s. He was a member of the CPI(Maoist) central committee at the time of his arrest from Bihar in 2011 and was released on bail earlier this year.

Both of Sanyal and Mukherjee and ailing and living in Kolkata since their release

Sarkar, too, has been associated with Naxalite politics since the late 1960s and was a member of CPI(Maoist) state committee at the time of his arrest in 2005. He was acquitted last year.

Despite all these leaders being in their seventies and suffering from various ailments, the police have decided to keep sharp vigil on the event because of the ‘stature’ of the leaders who are organizing it.

Sen Roy was a veteran Naxalite leader who was associated with the CPI(ML)(PU) faction during the 1980s and 1990s. He became a part of CPI(ML)(PW)’s Bengal leadership after the PW’s merger with the PU in 1998. He served as the PW’s state secretary between 2001 and 2004. After the PW merged with MCC in 2004 to form CPI(Maoist), Sen Roy became a state committee member. Later, he served as its state secretary between 2005 and 2008, until his arrest.

Sources in the Maoist camp told HT Sen Roy played an instrumental role in organising landless farmers, agriculture labourers and fishermen, especially in Nadia district. During the anti-land acquisition movements in Singur and Nandigram, Somen played a key role as the head of the Maoist party in Bengal.