Citizens’ Research Collective on SEZ

Soudhriti Bhabani

Kolkata, November 13, 2007 (IANS): Social activist Medha Patkar has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s (CPI-M) offensive in West Bengal’s violence-torn Nandigram region.

‘As the next course of our action, we demand a CBI inquiry into the capture of Nandigram at gun-point by CPI-M cadres. We are also planning to move court to ensure the real perpetrators get punishment,’ Patkar told IANS in an interview at Nandigram BMT Sikshaniketan relief camp where over 2,000 people had taken shelter after being thrown out by marauding CPI-M activists.

Patkar, who entered Nandigram with relief materials Tuesday evening, spent the night at a relief camp. She interacted with family members of victims, who broke down while narrating how CPI-M supporters fired on an unarmed rally taken out by Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) activists last week, leading to the death of two people and injury to several.

Over the last one week, supporters of BUPC — a group backed by the Trinamool Congress — fled in thousands as their houses were set ablaze while in many villages BUPC supporters switched allegiance to the CPI-M overnight to save the lives of their family members.

Patkar said that the whole relief programme in Nandigram, 150 km from the state capital, should be planned properly and the state government must restore peace in the area.

‘The West Bengal government has crossed its limit. What happened in Nandigram in the last few days cannot be forgotten,’ she said, also blaming the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre of inaction.

Earlier, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court, comprising Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice P.C. Ghosh, directed the CBI to immediately send a team to the troubled area in East Midnapore district and inquire into the circumstances that led to the police firing on March 14 that claimed 14 lives.

The order was passed on a petition filed by the National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) and some lawyers.

After repeated attempts to get inside the ‘war zone’, Patkar could finally enter the strife-torn district Tuesday evening and reach out to thousands of victims who were forced to leave their homes in the face of CPI-M terror and take shelter in relief camps.

She was assaulted and intercepted by CPI-M workers last week when she tried to enter Nandigram.

‘The state government should take the onus of reconstruction work in Nandigram and a special security zone should be developed instead of a special economic zone (SEZ) there,’ Patkar said.

The death toll in Nandigram violence has risen to 34 since January this year when the region flared up over proposed land acquisition for a SEZ, including a chemical hub, a plan that was later scrapped by the state government in the face of stiff resistance by local villagers.

Patkar plans to visit the interiors of Nandigram to see the actual situation there. Earlier, she had termed Nandigram ‘a concentration camp’.

Regarding the deployment of central paramilitary forces in Nandigram, she said: ‘The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) would function under the guidance of the state government but I hope they would be able to perform their duty which the local police failed to do.’

People who were forced to leave their homes and were ‘brutally tortured by CPI-M hooligans’ should be able to live in peace in the trouble-torn region, Patkar said.

Ironically, Patkar, who is also the leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), had fought many battles in other states with the CPI-M on her side till West Bengal’s Singur and Nandigram flared up over land acquisition protests and she found herself pitted against the Left in West Bengal.

Source: India eNews