By IANS
Kolkata : A farmer who was injured earlier this month in the violence in West Bengal’s Nandigram region has died at a hospital here.
Seikh Suleman, 50, is the first Nandigram victim to die at the SSKM Hospital here since the escalation of violence in the East Midnapore district, around 150 km from Kolkata.
The region has seen violence since January over a proposed special economic zone the West Bengal government wanted to set up on farmland. The decision, later scrapped, sparked a turf war between the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and a Trinamool Congress-backed group.
Suleman’s wife Halema Bibi said a group of people, allegedly CPI-M supporters, crossed the Talpati canal from the Khejuri side and came to their house at Sonachura on Nov 6.
“The gang asked my husband to come out of the house. As soon as he stepped out, they hurled bombs at him,” she said.
Suleman was rushed to the Tamluk district hospital with abdominal injuries. He was later brought to Kolkata and admitted to SSKM Hospital’s Curzon ward after his condition worsened. He died around 4.20 p.m. Wednesday, local reports said.
“Suleman had an infection in the wound when he came to Kolkata. We conducted an operation but the infection spread,” said Ashok Ghosh, medical superintendent of the SSKM Hospital.
“My father did not belong to any political party,” said his son Belal, who has been in the hospital with his mother since Nov 8.
Thirty residents of Nandigram have been admitted to SSKM hospital since March 14 with bullet or bomb shrapnel injuries.