By IANS
Kolkata : Fresh gun battles erupted in West Bengal’s troubled Nandigram area Saturday leaving one person dead and several injured even as the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) flayed Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi over his statement blaming the government for the situation.
A photojournalist covering the violence told IANS that a middle-aged villager, Sheikh Rizaul, was killed in the firefight.
Violence began in Nandigram, in East Midnapore district, at around noon between CPI-M cadres and the opposition Trinamool Congress-backed Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), which opposes land acquisition by the government for industry.
“The battle started in Mahespur area of Nandigram. I cannot confirm any injury figure,” East Midnapore Superintendent of Police S.S. Panda told IANS over phone from Nandigram.
Dipankar, a journalist of Tara Bangal news channel, was witness to the crossfire. “There is a hail of bullets. I can see an injured person being taken to hospital on a motorbike,” he told the channel.
Bijoy Chowdhury, an award-winning photojournalist, told IANS: “The situation is grave and the CPI-M is plundering village after village. You have to see to believe it. There are bullets flying everywhere and blood is splattered all over the place. Police are mute spectators.
“I can see four people with bullet wounds being taken to Nandigram hospital,” said Chowdhury.
The CPI-M has barred the entry of media and human rights groups to Nandigram at different points on the road to Nandigram.
“I have never seen such a situation. This is war,” said a shaken Chowdhury, who managed to give the CPI-M the slip and enter Nandigram.
“The CPI-M is saying that the Maoists are entrenched in Nandigram. But where are they? It is all CPI-M men mounting an onslaught on their rivals,” he said.
Meanwhile, CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose has termed Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi’s statement on Nandigram as “unconstitutional and partisan”.
On Friday, Governor Gandhi had termed the manner in which the villages in Nandigram were allegedly recaptured by the CPI-M as “unlawful and unacceptable”.
“The ardour of Deepavali has been dampened in the whole state by the events in Nandigram. Several villages in Nandigram are oscillating from deepest gloom to panic,” Gandhi said in a nearly 700-word statement.
“At the time of writing, the most accurate description for Nandigram is the one used by our home secretary, namely, it has become a ‘war zone’. No government or society can allow a war zone to exist without immediate and effective action,” Gandhi had said.
While Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was quick to welcome the governor’s strongly worded statement as courageous and a just observation, the CPI-M said the governor was “not impartial”.
Social activist Medha Patkar, who was allegedly assaulted by CPI-M activists on Thursday way to Nandigram, dubbed the area a “concentration camp”.
She and several others are now on hunger strike in Kolkata’s Esplanade area.
Meanwhile, filmmakers like Rituparno Ghosh and Aparna Sen along with several other leading artistes have announced a boycott of the state-organised Kolkata Film Festival (KFF) that begins Saturday evening.
Over the past week, the CPI-M has launched a massive offensive against the BUPC in Nandigram and regained lost bases in the area. Their cadres, known as Harmat Bahini, entered village after village and allegedly torched houses belonging to the rival groups.
While the CPI-M maintains that peace is returning to Nandigram, rights activists say otherwise.
Violence in Nandigram has claimed 32 lives since January, when the region flared up over proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ). The state government scrapped the plan later in the face of stiff resistance.
However, a turf battle continues in Nandigram between the CPI-M and the BUPC in the run-up to local body elections in May next year.