Citizens’ Research Collective on SEZ

Kolkata, November 9, 2007 (IANS): National Alliance of Peoples Alliance (NAPA) leader Medha Patkar and some intellectuals and rights activists Friday appealed to West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi help open up Nandigram to human rights groups. ‘We demand that peaceful defenders of human rights belonging to known peoples’ organisations be protected and their entry to Nandigram area facilitated,’ said Medha and other human rights activists in a letter to Gandhi.

The marauding Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists out have laid a siege in Nandigram area to recapture their lost bases.

Medha and her associates were roughed up by supporters of the CPI-M Thursday on way to Nandigram at Kapashberia in East Midnapore district, about 125 km from Kolkata.

‘We are shocked by the apathy, inaction and both direct and indirect support of the police to the CPI-M hooligans, indicating a breakdown of state machinery resulting in non-availability of any channel for security or redressal of grievances of common people.’

‘We hope that all concerned and progressive citizens, civil organisations as well as political parties will protest against the onslaught on Nandigram, forcible occupation of their territory and violation of basic human rights and civil liberties, compelling the constitutional authorities and government to intervene in this battle between the state and people for freedom, democracy, right to life and livelihood,’ they wrote.

‘Nandigram is under fire and scare. On the festive days of Kali Puja the light emerging from the land of martyrdom is not the lamps women would light in their houses but from the burning houses,’ the activists said.

‘We will resort to hunger strike for two days from Saturday to protest the human rights violation in Nandigram,’ Patkar told IANS.

The intellectuals, who comprised film and stage actors, human rights activists, ultra leftists and cultural activists, said at least 20,000 families of the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), a group which was formed to protest land acquisition in Nandigram, had to flee in fresh onslaught by the CPI-M.

The CPI-M regained its lost bases in Nandigram this week amid fresh violence that claimed several lives and left many injured since Tuesday.

Thousands of villagers fled from Nandigram as CPI-M men from adjoining Khejuri invaded one village after another, setting houses on fire.

The death toll in the Nandigram violence has risen to 32 since January when this East Midnapore constituency, about 150 km from Kolkata, flared up over a proposed special economic zone (SEZ), including a chemical hub.

Though the SEZ was scrapped, a turf battle continued in Nandigram between the CPI-M and the Trinamul Congress-supported BUPC in the run-up to the local body elections in May next year.

About 1500 CPI-M supporters earlier had to flee Nandigram and live in Khejuri for months.

Source: India eNews