In fact, they began with killing three men at Banksole village early this morning. Two of those shot dead were local CPM supporters and one was a CPM branch committee secretary of Banksole.

The murders today underline how administrative institutions, systematically subverted over the years by the CPM, collapse when there’s threat of a power-shift reducing party cadres to sitting ducks. Nothing illustrates this better than the story of those who were killed: 27-year-old Tinku Mahato; Anil Mahato, 48, the branch committee secretary of the CPM, and 23-year-old college student Abhijit Mahato.

An MA in Sanskrit from Vidyasagar University, Tinku was recently employed as a “para-teacher” in the village primary school. But Tinku Mahato was also the secretary of a “security syndicate” that employed nearly 200 youths of the village as security guards. The other two killed, Anil Mahato and Abhijit, were also key members of this syndicate. Their job: to provide security cover to vehicles on National Highway 6 as they passed the vulnerable Lodhasuli forest stretch where armed robbery is common.

This should have been the job of the Jhargram police but they had, in effect, “outsourced” this responsibility to this syndicate largely comprising CPM supporters. Routinely, armed robbers deflate tyres of vehicles on this stretch by littering the road with “improvised nails” and loot passengers. The police asked Tinku Mahato’s team to take over.

As per the agreement between the police and the “syndicate,” Mahato would employ his cadres from 6 pm to 6 am and, in return, was free to collect “taxes” from vehicles. The money — ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 500 — thus collected would be shared among the syndicate.

About a fortnight ago, there were Maoist posters in the village asking Tinku Mahato to “dissolve the syndicate” and quit. “I immediately rushed to the Jhargram police station to lodge an FIR about this Maoist threat and even submitted the threat poster to the police,” said Ajoy Mahato, father of Tinku.

“He was my only son, I knew that he faced danger. Today, my worst fears have come true. The police did nothing. They did not even visit the village once. Whom do we turn to for help now? The motorcycle-borne assailants shouted Maoists slogans, waving guns at us,” said Ajoy.

Anil Mahato, the branch committee secretary of the CPM, was a “bigger target” than Tinku. The Maoist squad chased him inside a fairly crowded morning village haat for quite a distance before gunning him down today. Tinku and Abhijit were killed at the haat as well.

“There are, obviously, insiders who are involved,” said Dileshwar Mahato, a CITU member of Mohanpur, the village next to Banksole, suggesting that CPM cadres, sensing the power shift, have switched over to the Opposition.

As the day progressed, several CPM party offices in Belatikri were attacked as Maoists torched the houses of at least three more leaders in the Lalgarh area, houses they claimed were symbols of “wealth and affluence” in the region’s poverty. The CPM has called a 12-hour West Midnapore bandh tomorrow.

Meanwhile, there were no clear-cut answers as to why Central security forces, who have already arrived, were still on stand-by. When asked, DIG (Law and Order) Raj Konojia said: “These forces are at the disposal of the state administration but when and where they will be deployed are details that cannot be divulged.”

The delay is not without reason. Police sources said that a “strategy” was being worked out given the barricades that are coming up around the village. One plan is to seal the Jharkhand-West Bengal border first before launching an operation in Lalgarh also involving the state police. For, a large armed squad is suspected to have sneaked into the Lalgarh-Bankura-Purulia belt bordering Jharkhand.

DGP Sujit Sarkar and the Home Secretary reached the district headquarters in Midnapore today and held a meeting with senior officials of the administration but no one has visited Lalgarh, the epicentre of the violence.

Ironically, Central forces are doubling up as guards of the Lalgarh police station.

The police station itself is under lock and key throughout the day. No villager comes to lodge any complaint to the police or to seek any help. In fact, policemen are facing a village “boycott,” accused as they are of “torturing” those who are not with the CPM.