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Maoist rebels call for a strike in four Indian states

Indian Maoist rebels, suspected of killing 55 police in an attack last week, yesterday called for a strike across four Indian states to protest the police shooting 14 villagers.

"The people must come to terms with the fact that governments in these states are agents of imperialist forces, and should rise to fight their anti-people agenda," the rebels said in a statement issued in the eastern state of Orissa.

The statement asked the public to support a strike tomorrow in Orissa, as well as in the eastern states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

In Nandigram village in West Bengal on Wednesday, police shot dead 14 protesters who were trying to prevent the compulsory purchase of land to build an industrial park.

On Thursday, Maoist rebels killed 55 police in an attack on a jungle security post in eastern Chhattisgarh state, one of their worst ever attacks in their four decades old insurgency.

Maoist rebels are active in half of India's 29 states, particularly in many of the regions that have seen the worst violence over land acquisition for industry under India's plan to set up Special Economic Zones.

Orissa has been a hub of agitation against the zones. The state has allotted huge tracts to the steel industry in recent years, and political activists in the state claim as many as 4 million locals face displacement by foreign and domestic industries as a result.

A protest against the building of a Tata steel complex in Orissa's remote Kalinga Nagar area led to the shooting deaths of 11 villagers in January.

"From Kalinga Nagar in Orissa to Nandigram in West Bengal the story is the same -- the governments acting in tandem with capitalist forces to build mega-industries by forcefully evicting the farmers," the Maoist statement said.

The latest violence in West Bengal has renewed debate in India over whether farmland should be used for industry in India.
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