By IANS,
Kolkata : Security at the Tata Motors’ Nano plant at Singur in West Bengal was tightened Friday, a day after pro-farmer organisation Paschimbanga Kshet Mazur Samiti (PKMS) staged a demonstration in front of the factory, preventing hundreds of workers from leaving the plant.
Sources said water cannons and fire tenders were brought in to tackle any untoward incident at the project site.
“Adequate security personnel are there at the factory site and we are keeping a watch on the situation,” West Bengal Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia told IANS.
He said no additional forces had been deployed to control the law and order situation in Singur, about 40 km from here.
More then 600 engineers and executives remained trapped for three hours inside the Tata Motors factory Thursday evening as PKMS activists, led by farmer leader Anuradha Talwar, held a cultural programme and squatted on the Durgapur Expressway near the gate leading to the vendor’s park.
Later the blockade was lifted with the intervention of Hooghly district’s Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Kalyan Banerjee.
“So far, the situation is normal in Singur. We have no reports of any protest at the factory site,” Hooghly district Police Superintendent Rajiv Mishra said.
The PKMS has no formal links with the Trinamool Congress, but is a part of the movement in Singur.
The Trinamool Congress-led Krishijami Jiban Jibika Raksha Committee (KJJRC), which opposed the takeover of farmland for the Tata project, had called for an indefinite protest at the Nano factory site from Aug 24.
The protesters are demanding the return of 400 acres of land that they allege was forcibly taken from “unwilling farmers” to build ancillary industries adjacent to the Tata Motors’ main plant.
A total of 997.11 acres was acquired for the project, of which 691.66 acres belonged to farmers who gave their land willingly.