By IANS
Kolkata : Filmmakers, artists, actors and writers took to the streets here Wednesday against the West Bengal government’s “onslaught” in Nandigram, while reports of abduction and intimidation by ruling CPI-M cadres in the area continued to pour in.
Wearing black badges and holding placards reading “Shame on West Bengal Government” and “Down with killers of innocent villagers”, the silent demonstrators started from College Square in north Kolkata in the afternoon and wound their way across the main campus of Calcutta University towards Gandhi statue in the Maidan.
All the leading intellectuals of the city, including filmmakers Aparna Sen, Mrinal Sen, Rituparna Ghosh, Goutam Ghosh, Anjan Datta, actor and playwright Bibhas Chakraborty, writer Shirshendu Mukherjee and poet Joy Goswami, participated in the procession.
“We have organised the silent procession to condemn the onslaught by CPI-M supporters. Several intellectuals and students have come from different states to participate in the rally.
“Some foreign delegates who have come to attend the Calcutta International Film Festival joined us. Those who could not come have called us and expressed their support to our movement,” noted theatre and film actor Kaushik Sen told IANS.
While they marched in protest against the government’s role in the upsurge of violence in Nandigram, fear continued to reign in the East Midnapore district area, about 150 km from here, even though no major incidents were reported.
Thousands of Trinamool Congress-led Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) supporters, rendered homeless by marauding CPM cadres, remained in relief camps, deprived of basic necessities despite promise of help by the administration.
Some complained that the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was doing nothing to stop the CPI-M cadres from rampaging through their homes.
“CRPF personnel have been mute spectators to the onslaught by CPI-M cadres. They are driving out supporters from the villages and torching their homes. Many women have been raped and abducted by the cadres.
“Only this morning, three of our supporters were abducted from a relief camp near the Nandigram High School. We still don’t know about their whereabouts,” BUPC leader Abdus Samad told IANS.
Another BUPC member Abdul Hamid added that CPI-M men broke into his house and poured petrol while his family was sleeping.
“We were asleep when the CPI-M men broke in and poured petrol inside in the house. Then the set the house on fire and fled on motorcycles,” he said.
However, police described the situation in Nandigram as more or less peaceful.
“Except for some stray incidents of violence, the situation is more or less peaceful. Several people have still not been allowed to enter their villages and were forced to spend the night under the open sky,” East Midnapore Superintendent of Police S.S. Panda told IANS Wednesday.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had Tuesday virtually justified the onslaught by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in Nandigram saying that the people “who suffered were paid back in their own coin”.
CPI-M’s ally, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), has threatened to withdraw four ministers from the government.
West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy Tuesday said that no Maoist guerrilla was found yet in the trouble-torn region.
The statement came after the chief minister and party general secretary Prakash Karat explained the weeklong operation by Marxist cadres to “capture” Nandidgram by claiming that Maoists were present in the area.
Violence in the region has claimed at least 34 lives since January. Trouble first flared in Nandigram in January over a government proposal to acquire farmland to set up a special economic zone (SEZ). The government later scrapped the plan in the face of stiff resistance, but the turf war continues.