Nandigram on boil again as 3 die in clashes, call for Bengal bandh today

Unconfirmed reports put the toll at 7, including 5 CPI(M) workers and two from the rival group. CPI(M) leaders in Kolkata claimed that at least six party cadres were missing after an attack on a party camp in Khejuri near Nandigram.

The violence prompted the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Socialist Unity Centre of India to call a 24-hour Bengal bandh tomorrow.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) and the state government, asking the public to foil the bandh, maintained that all efforts would be made to ensure normalcy.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who rushed to the Writers Buildings and called a meeting of senior officials, said: “The Jamaat-e-Ulema Hind, a communal outfit has joined the agitation and they have started a communal campaign there. It’s most alarming. However, we will go on with our work of development’’.

There were allegations of “total failure of police intelligence” about a section of villagers arming themselves to oppose the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Nandigram. These same villagers, officials said, had spread rumours and fomented trouble. There was no police feedback on such developments.

The latest flare-up in Nandigram is a fallout of the tension building ever since the January 3 incident when organized gangs resorted to attacks on police, set afire local CPI(M) offices and damaged village roads and culverts, calling it a blockade to stop police and administration officials from entering the area and acquiring land.

The violence was sparked by rumours that local block offices in were issuing notices for acquisition of land. But the administration denied there was any such move and that it was yet to identify the areas to be acquired.

A large number of CPI(M) supporters were uprooted from some 20 villages in and around Nandigram after the January 3 flare-up for not joining the 20 party conglomerate formed to protect land from being acquired by the government.

The 20-party platform includes the Trinamool Congress, SUCI, Naxalite factions and Jamaat-e-Ulema Hind which has a very strong following in the area — almost the same team, barring the Jamaat, that actively opposed the Singur project.

Medha Patkar too had made a couple of visits to Nandigram while agitating for Singur in Hooghly.

Lakshman Seth, CPI(M) Member of Parliament from Haldia, said that the party had set up camps for ousted villagers at Sonachura near Khejuri.

He claimed that these camps were attacked by the Save Land Committee late last night.

Local residents and members of the Save Land Committee had a different version.

They claimed that the CPI(M), unable to penetrate Nandigram villages, had assembled party cadres from other parts of the district to mount an attack on Nandigram and break the resistance of villagers and the Save Land Committee.

Late last night, when they were attacked, committee members said that the villagers retaliated.