THROUGH a statement issued from New Delhi on May 26, 2014, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has strongly condemned the gruesome murder of Comrade Ashmira Begum of Muhulla village, who was two times a member of the Ankhona panchayat. She, the wife of Ketugram village secretary of Kisan Sabha, Enayat Karim, was murdered by a killer gang of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). She was 35 years old. The AIKS expressed its grief and conveyed its heartfelt condolences to the family members and fellow activists of the beloved comrade. The murder was a pre-planned one and took place with the knowledge of some top leaders of the TMC government of West Bengal. The Kisan Sabha statement noted that after the Lok Sabha polls, the TMC has unleashed widespread violence in many villages in the state. The Kisan Sabha activists had resisted the attempt by TMC gangs to capture polling booth No 13 in Bahula primary school and Comrade Ashmira was in the forefront of the resisting people. In this booth, the Left Front has polled 324 votes against 219 by the TMC candidate. It was evidently to take revenge that the criminal gang of TMC activists attacked the house of Enayat Karim on the night of May 22. When Comrade Ashmira and Enayat Karim came out of their home and resisted the violence, the culprits attacked them with sharp weapons and severely injured Comrade Ashmira Begum, stabbing her in belly and chest. Though the neighbours rushed her to the nearby hospital, she succumbed to her injuries. The TMC gang also attacked the villagers who came to rescue the leaders and severely injured six persons including Noor Islam Sheikh, Muhammed Kuthubdeen, Safiul Islam, Abhijur Rahman and Muhammed Sahood who all had to be hospitalised. After the TMC government assumed power in the state, violence and anarchy has been imposed on many villages. Ten activists of the Kisan Sabha and progressive mass organisations were killed in the last three years in Ketugram and nearby villages in Burdwan district. The AIKS noted that the West Bengal chief minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, has been openly promoting hooligans and criminals to let loose terror in the whole of Bengal.  In the rural areas, the targets of attacks are the Kisan Sabha cadre. Many of them were killed or driven away from their houses. Their houses were burnt. But the police often refuse to register cases against them, or even register fake cases against the victims, and thus protect the criminals. There is no democratic atmosphere prevailing in vast parts of West Bengal. Such attacks on democracy are a big challenge to our country. Already more than 100 Kisan Sabha activists were killed since May 2011 under the TMC rule. The All India Kisan Sabha had called for organisation of a “Save Democracy” movement all over the country in support of its activists in West Bengal in the last week of September 2013. The AIKS has demanded that the TMC government must immediately arrest the culprits and take stringent action against all the accused. Saying that it would unleash a massive resistance movement against the terror of TMC criminals, the AIKS said it would take all steps to protect its activists from violence. It expressed confidence that the moral power of the peasantry would overpower the muscle power of murderous TMC gangs that are killing innocent peasants and rural workers. Terming the uncontrolled violence under the TMC rule as humiliating for the entire people of West Bengal, the AIKS has appealed to all the democratic and progressive minded individuals and mass and class movements in the state to rise against the inhuman violence sponsored by the TMC rule.