Bengal’s Move To Let Maoist Convicted Of Murdering Two Dozen Jawans Attend University Is Not Just Wrong But Dangerous

The West Bengal government has allowed a convicted leftist terrorist to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in history.

Arnab Dam was convicted of the massacre of 24 jawans of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR), an armed force of the state police, in February 2010.

The terrorist, who has secured admission to Burdwan University, started attending classes from 18 July and will do so at least thrice a week.

An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, dropout, Dam led a 34-member killer squad of Maoists that attacked an EFR camp at Silda, about 190 kilometres (km) west of Kolkata in Jhargram district on 15 February 2010.

The Maoists gunned down 24 EFR personnel, who were caught unawares and did not get a chance to defend themselves. Not content with killing the EFR personnel, the terrorists butchered, hacked, and disfigured the bodies of the slain personnel and decamped with a huge amount of arms and ammunition. 

While fleeing, the terrorists set the EFR camp on fire. The fire, forensic experts discovered, led to the excruciating deaths of a few EFR personnel, who had survived the gunshots and were hiding in parts of the camp. 

Dam and others were arrested and convicted of the horrific, cold-blooded murders and sentenced to life imprisonment in February last year.

The convicted terrorist was an undergraduate student of mechanical engineering at IIT Kharagpur. He dropped out while in his third semester and joined the ranks of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

Before going underground, Dam was an activist of the leftist terror group and had worked as an activist of the students’ wing of the proscribed outfit.

He underwent arms training in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and was put in charge of the organisation in Purulia and the Bengal-Jharkhand border.

Along with a fellow terrorist, Dam turned Purulia into a ‘liberated zone’ and became a feared outlaw in the treacherous terrain of the district and adjoining Jharkhand.

Under his command, the ‘Ayodhya platoon’ of the CPI (Maoist) became the most feared group of killers in the area. They were responsible for a number of heinous crimes. 

Ironically, Dam’s father was a judicial magistrate.

Dam became the state committee member of the CPI (Maoist) and took on the alias of ‘Bikram’. He was arrested in July 2012, and an AK-47 rifle and a good quantity of ammunition were recovered from him.

Since his incarceration and sentencing, Dam has received both the Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Arts (BA and MA) in history.

In 2019, he cleared the State Eligibility Test (SET) that qualified him for the post of a lecturer in a government or government-aided college in Bengal. 

The Trinamool Congress government, jail authorities, human rights activists, and Bengal’s legion of leftists had lauded Dam’s academic achievements. Thankfully, he did not land a job as a lecturer.

Earlier this year, Dam topped the qualifying examination for pursuing a PhD in history and applied to Burdwan University for admission.

He even went on a hunger strike when some procedural delays in clearing the admission process for a felon convicted of a massacre cropped up. 

The state and prison authorities, as well as Burdwan University authorities, cleared the process post-haste, and Dam appeared for ‘counselling’ (the penultimate step towards admission in a course) at university earlier this week.

He was granted interim parole to complete his admission process and will be given the same privilege every time he has to go to university. 

State Education Minister Bratya Basu and Correctional Administration Minister Akhil Giri intervened to clear the logjam over his admission. Burdwan University authorities are ecstatic over having a convict as a student.

“He is a very bright academic scholar and deserves a fair chance to get back into the mainstream. We will not discriminate against him. Anybody who has deviated from society and wants to get back should be given an opportunity,” said Syed Tanveer Nasreen, the head of the university’s history department. 

“A student wants to study and learn, universities are meant for that. There will be no objection from our side. We have gotten assurance from the police about the security measures in place with Arnab coming to physical classes for the first six months,” said the university’s interim vice chancellor Goutam Chandra. 

Dam, it is learnt, will go to the university campus thrice a week under police escort since he is a convict. He has now been lodged at the Burdwan ‘correctional facility’ to make it easier for him to go to university and complete his PhD.

There are many reasons why allowing a convicted terrorist, that too one found guilty of a cold-blooded massacre, the same privileges as available to law-abiding citizens is wrong and dangerous.

The salient ones among them are:

• Dam Is Unrepentant

There is no evidence that the number of years he has spent in a ‘correctional facility’ has ‘corrected’ him and made him junk his Maoist thoughts and beliefs.

• Dam Is A Danger To Society And The Nation

Since he has not returned to the ‘mainstream’ by junking the ideology of (leftist) terror, it can be assumed that the man still believes in terror and violence as a means to overthrow the Indian state and establish a ‘communist dictatorship’. 

That makes him an enemy of the state and qualifies him to be at least incarcerated till death.

Dam is still a danger to society and the nation, and cannot be allowed privileges like attending classes and obtaining degrees, which are available to common law-abiding citizens of the country.

A person accused of heinous crimes, especially a terrorist, has to have his privileges severely curtailed. 

There is no guarantee that Dam will not flee from ‘custody’ while he is attending classes and rejoin the terror group (the Maoists) to carry out more crimes.

• Disrespect To Fallen Soldiers

Providing Dam the privilege of going to a university to obtain a PhD degree amounts to terrible disrespect to the fallen EFR soldiers.

Dam and his gang of terrorists did not just gun them down; they hacked their bodies with sharp weapons like machetes, gouged out their eyes and innards, and left them in a horrific state. 

Also, they set fire to the EFR camp while fleeing to ensure that those who escaped their bullets and butchery died grisly deaths in the blaze.

Such a person cannot be let out of prison on any ground whatsoever. Doing so translates to a grave and unpardonable insult to not only the EFR personnel who were his hapless victims, but also the bereaved families — the widows and orphans who are still suffering their losses.

• Sets A Dangerous Precedent

If a Maoist can be let loose to attend university today, an Islamist terrorist who kills people to achieve an ‘Islamic state’ can also claim the same privileges tomorrow.

Allowing Dam to go to Burdwan University to attend classes and do his PhD coursework like any other student amounts to forgetting his crimes for which he has never expressed regret. 

Doing so would set a dangerous precedent because the state will then have no excuse to disallow rapists, serial killers, or other terrorists the same privileges. 

Such criminals have to be at least locked up for life, especially since they cannot be ‘corrected’.

• Danger Of The Establishment Setting Him Free

The Bengal government’s act of allowing Dam to attend university could be the first step to his being eventually set free.

Dam’s lawyers have challenged his conviction in a higher court and, going by the favours being showered on him by the state government, there is no guarantee that public prosecutors will oppose the challenge strongly.

If the state does not put up a strong opposition to Dam’s challenge of his conviction, a higher court may set him free, as has happened in the case of many others.

Dam will then be free to either rejoin the ranks of Maoists or become a college or university teacher and spread his abhorrent ideology to students, indoctrinate them into Maoism, and churn out a fresh crop of terrorists who will indulge in subversive and terror acts.

That would be a grave threat to society and the Indian state. 

That is why the privileges extended to Dam should be withdrawn, and the state government should, suo moto, ask a higher court to scale up Dam’s punishment. 

If the state government does not take this necessary step, there is a good chance of Dam walking free two years from now. That’s because the life sentence handed down to Dam qualifies him for parole after 14 years behind bars. 

Dam has already spent 12 years in jail since he was arrested in July 2012. His lawyers are most likely to appeal to a court that the total period of his incarceration as an under-trial (before being convicted and sentenced) be included in the minimum term of 14 years that makes him eligible for parole in July 2026. Going by the conduct of the state government, the prosecution (the state) is unlikely to oppose this appeal. 

And an unrepentant Dam, who is still a Maoist, will walk out of a ‘correctional home’ a free man after having murdered and butchered 24 men in uniform.

And he will be free after that to either repeat his crimes or indoctrinate youngsters to commit such heinous crimes in the name of a bloody political ideology that has caused millions of deaths all over the world.