Tomluk (West Bengal) : Cowering in fear, victims of violence in West Bengal’s Nandigram region Wednesday recounted tales of torture at the hands of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) cadres.
“My wife was beaten up by CPI-M attackers when I was not at home. They broke her legs with a rifle butt and dragged her to a paddy field at gunpoint and raped her till she lost consciousness,” Mir Akbar Ali told IANS at a government hospital in Tomluk, about 130 km from Kolkata.
“Both my daughters, 16-year-old Ansura Khatun and 14-year-old Mansura Khatun, were abducted by CPI-M cadres and are missing,” he said.
Ali said the CPI-M cadres started their operation of recapturing Nandigram in East Midnapore district Nov 5 and worked gradually through the area.
“If you go to Nandigram you will find red flags fluttering on top of every house. The entire district has turned into a ghost town,” he said, recounting how people were killed when CPI-M men fired upon a rally taken out by the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) activists Nov 10.
The rally was moving from Maheshpur to Sonachura within the Nandigram area when CPI-M supporters surrounded the procession and started firing, Ali said.
According to eyewitnesses, the CPI-M cadres systematically captured village after village – Satengabari, Ranichak, Iyakhali, Brindabanchak, Jambari, Gokulnagar.
“We could not take our belongings and had to flee, leaving everything behind. The CPI-M people ransacked everything and set our houses ablaze,” alleged Nuhu Nabi, a BUPC member.
Nabi said his brother Bulu Mir, 30, was shot while the CPI-M men were attacking Satengabari. He is now fighting for his life in Tomluk Hospital.
Hospital sources said there were about 50 patients from Nandigram who have been admitted to the surgical ward of the hospital.
When an IANS correspondent tried to meet the victims, hospital authorities stopped him at the gate.
“The hospital is controlled by CPI-M cadres. We can’t go against them. I had raised my voice calling for treatment of the victims but was threatened by party cadres,” a hospital official said on condition of anonymity.
“It’s better if you leave the place now. Their men are keeping an eye on everything happening in the hospital,” the official said while CPI-M supporters started shadowing this correspondent.
“Most patients from Nandigram have been admitted to the orthopaedic ward with bullet injuries. The condition of some of them is very critical,” the official added.
The death toll in Nandigram violence has risen to 34 since January when the region flared over plans to acquire land for a SEZ, including a chemical hub, a plan that was later scrapped by the state government.
Since then a turf battle between the CPI-M and BUPC has raged, with armed CPI-M supporters the apparent victor in the latest round.