Mamata ready to start peace talks with Maoists

Lalgarh: Union Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee addressed a huge rally at Lalgarh on Monday afternoon and said peace talks with Maoists should be started immediately. The minister said she was ready to take the initiative, to visit Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and other affected places to begin the talk process.

Banerjee's statement is being viewed as an attempt to take off from the peace initiatives of Cherukuri Rajkumar or Azad, who was gunned down in an 'encounter' in Adilabad, Andhra Pradesh in early July. Azad was the third in command and the group's chief spokesperson. Banerjee also said Azad had been murdered by the security forces. "That was not proper. I pay my respects to the departed soul. Azad's peace initiatives should restart immediately," she said.
At this hotbed of Maoist activity, where extremists and security forces have played a bloody cat-and-mouse game for some years now, Banerjee said: "Today is the day to commemorate the Quit India movement of the freedom struggle. On this Quit India day, let us take the pledge that terror will quit from Lalgarh."

Banerjee said politics cannot be played with death, at the cost of human life. "I will not support those who are indulging in violence. I invite Maoists to come to the negotiation table and seek a solution through constitutional and democratic means," she said.
She raised the hopes of the people there by reiterating her demand that the joint operation by the Centre and the state government should immediately be stopped. She said a lot of the violence going on in Lalgarh had been attributed to the Maoists, when in actuality they were being perpetrated by Communist cadres, with the active help of the security forces.