Kolkata(IANS) : Thousands fled from their homes in Nandigram Wednesday to escape an offensive launched by the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists from the adjoining base of Khejuri to regain control of their lost ground.
“Four villagers have been killed since Tuesday in the Khejuri-Nandigram area. At least 10 people were injured, including a woman and a policeman. There has been tension since morning but there has been no firing,” East Midnapore Superintendent of Police S.S. Panda told IANS.
“Two of the killed were identified as Tushar Kanti Sahu and Nirapada Ghata but the other two we could not identify,” he said Wednesday.
“Nandigram has turned into a war zone. We are trying our best to control the situation,” West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy told reporters Tuesday.
Roy said police were taking positions to guard Tekhali Bridge to prevent further violence.
An English daily put Tuesday’s toll at 10 but police have confirmed death of only four people, taking the toll in Nandigram violence to 32 since January when the region flared up over proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ), including a chemical hub, a plan which was later scrapped by the state government in the face of stiff resistance.
Though the SEZ was scrapped, a turf battle continued in Nandigram between the CPI-M and the Trinamool Congress supported Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) in the run-up to the Panchayat elections in May next year.
CPI-M supporters Tuesday torched house after house in Nandigram, about 150 km from Kolkata, as they advanced from adjoining Khejuri to regain control as villagers fled for their lives, carrying whatever they could, reports from Nandigram said.
Some 200 CPI-M men from Khejuri armed with long-range rifles, single-barrel guns, pipe guns and bombs Tuesday crossed the Talpatti canal at Bahargunj and attacked Satengabari, Brindabanchowk, Jambari, Girirbazar, Keyakhali, Simulkunda, Saifullachowk and Raynagar villages of Nandigram.
“It is a planned attack. The CPI-M has assembled its armed supporters to mount the attack with the backing of Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) and crush the opposition,” said West Bengal Public Works Department Minister Kshiti Goswami who belongs to the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), an ally of the CPI-M in the government.
According to one report, 30-year-old Manasi Das, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, was holding on to her four-year-old daughter Shiuli when two bullets pierced her thighs Tuesday. She hasn’t seen her daughter since.
“Shots were being fired from Khejuri since early morning. From 8 a.m. the shouts of CPI-M workers drew near. I was hurrying out of the house with my daughter,” Manasi told a Kolkata daily from her bed at Tamluk Hospital.
“My husband Swapan had our six-year-old son Soumen with him. I was hit in the legs and collapsed. I have not met my daughter or any of my other family members since,” she said.
Most residents of BUPC-controlled areas of Satengabari, Girirbazar, Brindabanchowk and Jambari fled their homes Tuesday. They were given shelter in school buildings elsewhere.
The CPI-M has been launching attacks from Khejuri where about 1,500 party supporters are living in refugee camps after they had to flee Nandigram since the flare-up in January.
On March 14, at least 14 villagers were killed in police firing in Nandigram when they resisted the entry of policemen to the area.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has appealed to opposition parties to find a political solution to the Nandigram violence while seeking the presence of central security forces in the area.