CPI-ML faction to honour kin of 1000 Naxal Separatists

CPI-ML faction to honour kin of 1000 Naxalites

Author: Anand Mohan Sahay in Patna
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: November 15, 2002
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/15naxal.htm

The Communist Party of India, Marxist Leninist Liberation, will honour the kin of about 1000 Naxalites, known as 'comrade martyrs', from Bihar who have been killed over the last three decades of the peasant struggle. The ceremony will take place in Patna on November 30, the final day of the seventh party congress.

About 800 delegates from across the country will attend the congress, being held from November 25 to 30. Delegates from communist parties of 13 countries will also join them.

The public meeting to honour the family members will be held at Gandhi Maidan, said Prabhat Kumar, office secretary of the party's state headquarters.

This is the first time that the CPI-ML has compiled a list of the 'heroes' of the Naxalite movement in Bihar from 1970-2002. Prabhat Kumar said that in the last five years, at least 350 party cadres have been killed in Bihar alone.

Several prominent social activists, environmentalists, and writers-turned- activists like Mahashweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Sandeep Pandey, Rajinder Sachar, Praful Bidwai, and Anand Patwardhan will attend the opening session of the congress.