SUMMARY
The PCPA (People's Committee against Police Atrocities, Police Santras Birodhi Janosadharan Committee; alternatively “Lalgarh movement”; alternative abbreviation PCAPA) was a tribal militia formed in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district, protesting against alleged police atrocities.
The group was created in November 2008, in the town of Lalgarh in West Midnapore, West Bengal and was originally referred to as the “Lalgarh movement”. The Lalgarh movement appears to have formed spontaneously on 6 November 2008, as residents of Lalgarh gathered to block the local police station; the movement then crystalized itself into the PCPA over the coming six months. The original purpose of the PCPA was to protect the adivasis, or members of the Scheduled Tribes (a term used in India to denote tribal peoples recognized by the Constitution), in the area around Lalgarh from abuse and repression by the local police and paramilitary forces. The ruling political party in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI (M)), had ordered this clampdown on the inhabitants of the region following an attempt to assassinate the West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on 1 November 2008, some 30 kilometers from Lalgarh. However, the area around Lalgarh was also supportive of CPI (M)’s political rivals, the Jharldiand Party and Jharkhand Disham Party. The PCPA also demanded the removal of police camps from the district, and that the victims of police brutality would be compensated.
Initially, the PCPA was led by Chhatradhar Mahato, until his arrest in 2009. Santosh Patro, who had been one of Mahato’s closest associates during the group’s formative phase, then replaced him. The PCPA also had a 21-member “core committee”, which formulated the group’s strategies and policies. Most of the committee members were arrested or killed in 2010. The PCPA also organized an armed wing called the “Sidhu Kanu Gana Militia”, which was led by “commander” Sidhu Soren.
The PCPA’s area of operations included the West Midnapore, Bankura, and Purulia districts, which were part of West Bengal’s poor and underdeveloped tribal areas; the areas were also neglected by the CPI (M)-led administration. India’s “Naxalite” insurgent groups, such as the CPI-Maoist, were also active in the tribal areas in West Bengal. The PCPA had very close ties to the CPI-Maoist, and has even been described as a “popular front” or “proxy” of the Maoists. It has for example been suggested that Naxalites, most likely from CPI-Maoist, trained local PCPA fighters. This close connection was however not universally accepted, and it has been suggested that West Bengal’s ruling CPI (M) has actively exaggerated the intimacy of PCPA’s ties to the CPI-Maoist in order to discredit the group.
