By IANS
Kolkata : Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee Tuesday softened her stand on participating in peace talks to restore normalcy in Nandigram, but said she reposed faith in only an initiative under the governor.
Banerjee told a press conference at her residence here that Trinamool was prepared to take part in an all-party peace meeting in Nandigram, if it was called by West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
"We want to restore peace in Nandigram and at the same time want all developmental work and peace procedures to start in the trouble-torn region," she said.
Nandigram, in East Midnapore, has in the past months witnessed angry protests over farmland acquisition for a special economic zone. On March 14, police firing on a violent mob of protesters left 14 villagers dead and 100 injured. Mamata's party has been fighting against the land acquisition.
She said her party would not put any condition for participating in the meeting convened by the governor provided all decisions taken between the government and opposition parties in the meeting were implemented.
"The all-party meeting should include in its agenda the massacre in Nandigram as well as rape and atrocities. The government has no transparency and it has violated its own promise of not allotting farmlands for industries," Banerjee said.
Condemning administrative inaction of the West Bengal government, she said no measure has been taken against the perpetrators of the March 14 massacre in Nandigram and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) report has also been suppressed.
Banerjee's comments came after the Left Front leadership gave the go-ahead signal to the Front constituents to start a dialogue either jointly or separately with the opposition in a move to restore normalcy in Nandigram.
Meanwhile, the state government has also decided to deploy few additional police camps in Nandigram-Khejuri areas of East Medinipur district to ensure essential services to the people there.
The ferry service between Nandigram and Haldia also resumed from Tuesday.
"A few more police camps will be set up in certain areas to prevent fresh trouble as both the sides concerned have expressed their apprehensions," West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said at State Secretariat Writers' Building Tuesday.
He added the purpose would be "to stabilise" only the fringe areas and not to enter fresh areas.
Roy, however, denied the presence of Maoist rebels in Nandigram despite intelligence reports that they had infiltrated the area.
"The state government has no specific evidence about Maoist infiltration into Nandigram, though there have been intelligence reports in this regard for the past three months," he said, adding that no date has been finalised so far for holding an all-party peace meeting in Nandigram.
The state government has already scrapped the SEZ project officially.