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Abuse Clinton in Marxist Bengal and land in jail ALOKE BANERJEE TIMES NEWS NETWORK Times of India, Dec 8, 2001 KOLKATA: It is not safe in Marxist West Bengal to criticise former US president Bill Clinton even when the state government has decided on Thursday not to move a bill to enact Prevention of Organised Crimes Act (POCA), a cousin of the much reviled central law the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO). Two girls in their early 20s, Deepa Sarkar and Kakoli Mandi, found this out to their great misfortune. The girls, Naxalites attached to People's War, were arrested from Salboni in Midnapore for carrying a "Clinton Go Back" placard. Both were charged with sedition and have been languishing in jail since March. The lack of an act on organised crime has not deterred the administration from putting nearly 1,000 political prisoners behind bars for prolonged periods. All of them have been arrested under the existing laws. As many as 686 of them are members of the Kamtapur People's Party which is demanding a separate state in North Bengal. The rest are activists of various Naxalite factions. Ironically, the Left Front and the CPM too had raised similar slogans during Clinton's first visit to India in March 2000, then as the president of the United States. The opponents to the proposed law from within the CPM have insisted that there was no need for a law such as the POCA and existing laws were enough to deal with organised crime. ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================