<b>Bengal CM needs to do some introspection: Advani</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This was the very place that witnessed the massacre of March 14, when the police and the CPI(M) cadres clashed with the villagers that left more than 20 dead, more than 300 injured and hundreds missing from the villages.<b> "I just can't believe that such barbarism and atrocity could be inflicted upon the people by its own government in Independent India,"</b> said a shocked Advani.
The moment his cavalcade stopped at Sonachura, children, women and men began to come out of their houses from nowhere to tell their plight to the leader and narrate some of the most harrowing moments experienced by them at the hands of the police and the CPI(M) cadres.
<b>"I saw the deep anger and intense anguish in the eyes of the women. They cried and narrated how they have been maltreated (raped) and also about their children and men who are still missing since that day. The men also cried. This reminded me of the Jallianwala Bagh incident where General Dyer killed innocent people. The Marxists have repeated the same incident. History will never forget Sonachura and never forgive the Marxists for what they have done,"</b> said Advani amidst cheers from the villagers.
Covering 440 kms in his whirlwind visit to Nandigram that began at 7 am and ended at 6.30 pm, Advani expressed shock about how the CM of Bengal has lost the confidence of the people. "Everywhere I went people cried hang that man. Buddha has lost the support of his allies who have condemned him and also his mentor (Basu) who has reprimanded him for acting arrogantly. In fact, Sonachura and Nandigram has witnessed unwanted and unnecessary use of force," said Advani.
Leaving Sonachura at 1.30 pm, Advani rushed to the Nandigram hospital and Tamluk District Hospital to meet the victims of bullet injuries who are admitted there. Talking to the patients, Advani got the idea of the war that was razed on March 14 at Nandigram.
Unable to find any words, Advani said: "The CM needs to do some introspection. The CPI(M) just cannot disregard the voice of the people. Even the Governor and the High Court has condemned this barbaric act. The Left Front allies have criticised the CM and the CPI(M). Today, the CM and his government is isolated from everyone in the country," said Advani.
"March 14 will be recorded as the Blackest Day of the 30-year-old CPI(M) regime in Bengal. It exposed the Stalinist mindset of the party and also how over the years their cadres have come to run a parallel government in the state," alleged Advani.
<b>Criticising the role of the Centre in this incident, Advani said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC president Sonia Gandhi must introspect whether they can allow such incidents in Independent India. "It seems in one pocket of the country, democracy has ceased to exist. And the only party that has not said a single word about this barbaric act and the massacre is the Congress,"</b> criticised Advani
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<span style='color:red'>Shivraj Patil defends firing </span>
Rajeev Ranjan Roy | New Delhi
Cong backs CPM on Nandigram
Toeing the line of an unrepentant CPI(M), Home Minister Shivraj Patil on Friday defended the 'police brutalities' on the agitating farmers of Nandigram on March 14, saying that the policemen opened the fire in self-defence. Patil informed the Lok Sabha that 'the police initially fired rubber bullets' to control the situation, but it yielded no results.
"Ultimately, the police had to open fire in self-defence to disperse of the mob," he said, which left scores of farmers dead and many others injured.
Referring to the situation that led to the killings, Patil said that the police movement started at 10 am on March 14 in Nandigram area. "While one of the police parties could move into Nandigram without resistance, two other police parties were confronted by large gatherings of hostile people," he said.
"When the police asked them to disperse, they paid no heed and resorted to heavy brick-batting, causing injury to some policemen. To disperse the mob, police lobbed tear gas shells. The mob then became more agitated and started hurling bombs followed by opening of fire," he said.
"A few policemen sustained splinter injuries. To control the situation, police initially fired rubber bullets, but this again yielded no results. Ultimately, the police had to open fire in self-defence, causing dispersal of the mob. This incident took place near Bhangaberia bridge," Patil added.
Patil's reply to the House, though based on the report received by Ministry of Home Affairs from West Bengal government on the evening of March 14, is bound to raise many an eyebrow in political circles in general and among the NDA leaders in particular.
The Opposition feels that toeing the State Government's line the Lok Sabha exposes the Congress' inability in 'doing or uttering anything in the House that goes against the wishes of the CPM.'
Patil said that another police party on March 14 also met with violent resistance at Adhikaripara, where heavy brick batting, bomb throwing took place. "As a result, some police were injured. In both the incidents, 12 policemen including additional SP Tamluk and assistant SP received splinter injuries and due to brick batting.
"Serious and extensive injuries could be avoided as all the policemen were in protective gear. However, a number of people were injured in the police firing and it is believed that the bombs that they were hurling also injured some of the agitators. Till 8 pm on March 14, 2007, according to the report received at the State headquarters, 14 people died including some critically injured people who succumbed to the injuries," Patil stated in his reply.
Though the Home Minister's reply talks of 'hurling of bombs' and violent resistance from the crowds, but only eight firearms were recovered during the police search. "Following the above incidents, there was no further organised resistance to the movement of the police party who were now able to move to Sonachura and establish a temporary camp there. Police was also able to reach a few other neighbouring villages. In the course of their search, 8 illegal firearms were recovered which had probably been used against the police party," his reply said.
What turned out to be the most outrageous attack by the State police on the farmers in the country in recent decades, the report of the State Government that Patil read out in the Lower House was an attempt to end the continuing lawless situation in the area.
"It was decided that the lawlessness in Nandigram and surroundings should not be allowed to continue. The damaged roads, bridges and culverts should be repaired without any further delay and police should take up the investigations of the cases of the murder," Patil said.
"Thereafter, police force was mobilised and it was decided that the force should enter Nandigram through three separate routes under the leadership of senior officers. The police force was asked to exercise utmost restraint. They were further directed to use the loudspeakers to explain the purpose of the movement of the police party to the people of that locality which is to establish peace and to restore normalcy," Patil said.
In what appears to be the obvious impact of CPM on Patil's response on the Nandigram massacre in the House, he said that as per the report received from the State Government, some miscreants on March 15 ransacked the CPI(M) party office in the area.
There is no clear picture, what is going on? I have asked my next door neighbor's maid in India to find out. She is from that area. That area is completly closed down, worst then Operation Bluestar.
I am searching demography of that area. Missing number is too high.
<b>Nandigram: CBI digs soil, recovers arms </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Following a tip off, the CBI team raided a brick kiln inside Nandigram and recovered heavy cache of arms and ammunitions.
They arrested 10 people from the Nandigram brick kiln and r<b>ecovered nine rifles and five pistols including a foreign made one from their possession. Helmets, binoculars and CPM flags </b>are also recovered from the brick kiln
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>CBI begins probe; rape by CPM cadre alleged </b>
Pioneer News Service | Uluberia/Kolkata
Even as a special CBI team led by Joint Director (East) BB Mishra on Friday began investigating Wednesday's police atrocities in Nandigram, allegations of rape have begun to surface:<b> Two victims were reportedly admitted in Tamluk district hospital, sources said. There are also reports that an unnerved police brass is disposing of bodies of slain villagers in other parts of West Bengal to avoid CBI detection.</b>
Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee told newspersons in Kolkata that <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>she had received information about women being raped by CPI(M) cadre who have captured Sonachura, Garchakraberia and other places after Wednesday's police action.</span>
<b>Two victims of the police firing are believed to have been found at Panchla in Uluberia near Howrah, some 160 km from Nandigram, lying by the NH 6 early on Friday morning. Local residents claimed one of the victims was dead and the other, who was sent to SSKM Hospital, indicated that he was from Nandigram</b>.
"<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>To avoid being detected by the CBI, the police are disposing of bodies in far off places in the dead of night," angry residents said before setting on fire a local CPI(M) office. </span>However, Superintendant of Police NK Singh said the police were looking into the matter.
At Nandigram, the CBI team collected bullet shells and blood samples and dust from the killing fields. Thousands of villagers gathered to tell the team details of what happened on Wednesday, local Trinamool MLA Subhendu Adhikari said. The CBI team is also gathering information on the missing.
Meanwhile, <b>State CPI secretary Manju Majumdar on Friday confirmed his party's decision to quit the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Cabinet if the Government refused to consider its demands. "</b>We can't say what other Left partners are thinking, but the CPI would want the Government to run on certain basic principles that were decided at the start of Left rule," Majumdar said.
The CPI, which holds the Nandigram Assembly constituency, complained that it was not informed before police action in the village. "We want immediate withdrawal of police from Nandigram," Majumdar said, adding his party would raise the issue during Saturday's Left Front meeting.
Thought the RSP was not forthright about its future course of action, senior leader and Cabinet Minister Kshiti Goswami said, "As a separate political party, we are answerable to the people separately. In that case, certain unpopular decisions taken by the Government will put a question mark on the other constituents of the Front. We want this Government to change its ways."Â
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<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Mar 18 2007, 01:32 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Mar 18 2007, 01:32 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->This is sick, where is Teesta and her gang.
[right][snapback]65770[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Mudy ji,
I don't know if this is the right thread. But there is an important issue of SEZ. If you think a separate thread is warranted, kindly move this there and let me know.
Namaskaram.
Here is a note.
Can someone check these figures cited by Ranjit Goswami, please? They are mind-boggling.
The point has been made. Converting the rashtra into a fraud called "Special economic zone" won't result in abhyudayam. It will only result in colonisation by invitation.
Who are the CPI-M and what remains of the Left Front trying to fool? Returning Rabindra and other puraskars may be meek protests. Throwing the rascals out of politics will take a peoples' revulsion which is emerging, firmly and decisively. Psec media might sing praises of 90-year olds' cleverness in holding the Left Front together. When the hearts and lives of people are trampled over, what remains will only be a scrap of allegorical play being played out by Buddha that he will industrialize west bengal, 'at any cost'. Is he the proprietor of West Bengal tilting at the narodniks together with the Sancho Panza Karat? Ideologues? Disgusting politico-s wallowing in their own ego's, far removed from the reality of the rashtram (Aham raashtree said the Devi, Vaagaambhrini).
And one source[1], I didn't search enough, reported 'From 1979 to the end of 1996, a total of $175 trillion had actually been invested in China by foreign entities'. So at that rate, we need 7000 million acres of land to accommodate that capital investment. Valuation of that dollar was 1999 basis as it was a 1999 research conference paper, one may take equivalent dollar value today, and thereby may further inflate above 7000 million acres (7 billion) by 1.5 times.
Let me state honestly that above figure did blow my mind off too â it's almost four times of present nominal global GDP. So one gets more surprised when one reads the next line 'This figure is less than half of the total pledged amount of US $ 469 trillion'.
So to accommodate above figure (US $ 469 trillion, to attract capital investment, isn't it?) at $25,000/acre, one needs around 15 billion acres, if not more due to other stated reasons. Available land in India, as per CIA Factbook[2] is 2,973,190 sq km, which comes to less than 1 billion acre.
It's simple arithmetic if we get the units right - 1 sq. km = 100 hectares, and one hactare, equivalent to some 2-3 acres (1 sq. km = 247 acres, to be precise). I took the higher one (300 acres = 1 sq. km) for my ballpark calculations.
1] 'Foreign Direct Investments To and from China' by Philippine APEC Study Center Network (PASCN), pp3 http://pascn.pids.gov.ph/DiscList/d99/s99-21.pdf . As the figure was astounding, I checked the reference for author, Rosalina Tan in Google scholar, and found evidence to find author credible enough. However one can never be certain about that without long term research, and I am not from this field.
India had missed first Industrial revolution due to British occupation of India. India needs industry because of huge population and limited land. India is not interested in occupying any land. Long foreign occupation had made them mentally submissive.
India had left with limited option to feed and improve quality of Indian citizens. Either as we have done, move out of country and continue indirect invasion of foreign land. Or utilize resources properly. India can use barren land to open industry.
Las Vegas, fastest growing city in USA, started by one manâs crazy thought, he opened a hotel in desert where no water, no electricity, no tree in sight and changed it into now a booming city. Same is with Phoenix and other cities from no where. India need entrepreneur who can think out of box, in place of grabbing fertile land, they should first occupy barren land.
In case of China, China forcefully grabbed land from farmers. This year, one of the oldest cities in China will change into reservoir, we donât see any protest. Itâs not possible in India.
WB government had to feed their foot soldiers. I think they are getting paid by investors under desk. Govt will not get I-Tax but Commie machinery will get oil for decades.
WB should first kick out all illegal Bangladesh, change labor law. Use ports properly. Develop industry based on port.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By: Ranjit Goswami Posted on: 3/17/2007 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
His data is interesting, but we should look into functioning of CPI(M) to understand and love for China.
Tomorrow I move last two post to new topic under Business
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sheo Kumar Jhunjhunwala, a friend of Chandan Basu, approached the CM in 1990 with a proposal to set up an art centre to fulfill a "long-felt need" of Calcutta. He proposed a 3,000 sq ft facility -- housing rehearsal rooms, an art gallery, a library, etc. Location: 3 Lower Rawdon Street. Problem: He was locked in a legal dispute with the state over the prime half-acre plot.
Daddy Basu obliged: Jhunjhunwala not only got the government to withdraw from acquiring the land, he got it for Rs 7 lakhs -- as against the market value of *over* Rs 2 crore. Today, Surya Rawdon Gardens, a posh apartment complex, stands on the spot. Nowhere in the published plans of the Rs 11.5 crore complex is there an "art centre." Last year, Basu oh-so-innocently said, "It's a shame that we don't have a proper public art centre."
* 15 acres in Salt Lake were allotted to Kamal Gandhi for housing a garment exporters' federation. There was not a single exporter registered with Gandhi -- who promptly began to cut up and sell plots at profit.
* A sick state-owned sugarcane factory, along with 500 acres of land, were sold to S K Khaitan, of Khaitan Fans, so that he would revive the unit and help the proletariat. Khaitan now grows vegetables there for export to Bangladesh.
* Mahendra Jalan, of the Keventer Group, was given 130 acres of state land in Calcutta's Barasat district - to run a packaging unit.
* Swapan Sadhan Bose, Chandan Basu's partner in a shrimp export business, was practically gifted a state-owned salt factory in Digha.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Worse than Jallianwala </b>
Saugar Sengupta | Kolkata
... says Advani after Nandigram visit, reiterates call for Article 355
Comparing Wednesday's police and CPI(M) atrocity at Nandigram in West Bengal to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Leader of the Opposition LK Advani on Saturday reiterated his demand that the Union Government must invoke Article 355 of the Constitution to deal with the situation.Â
Advani's remarks followed a visit by a team of NDA MPs to the affected villages of Nandigram. The team, led by Advani, comprised Sushma Swaraj, George Fernandes, SS Ahluwalia, Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy.
<b>"I have never seen such a horrific situation in my life where women and children offering puja were fired upon indiscriminately," </b>Advani said, seeking the Prime Minister's intervention to ensure an impartial investigation by the CBI that is probing the incident.
<b>"I found cases where neither the police nor the CBI is speaking to victims of rape. I met two such women who complained of having been raped, but their charges have not been registered by the police," </b>he said, adding, "I would request the Prime Minister to ensure an impartial inquiry into the matter."
Invoking images of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Advani said in Nandigram the police had aimed at the chests and bellies of the victims, including women who were offering puja. He said the Marxist Government in West Bengal was no better than the British colonial regime.
Advani, visibly moved by his visit to Nandigram where he spoke to a large number of victims, said people will not forgive the Marxists for Wednesday's massacre and history will not forget such a macabre incident, unheard of anywhere else in the country.
Â
Senior BJP MP Sushma Swaraj and NDA convener George Fernandes said the CPI(M)-led Left Front Government had "forfeited its right to be the people's representative".
Ignoring threats from Marxist cadre, more than 6,000 villagers had gathered at Sonachura Bazaar to meet the NDA leaders. They demanded the "most severe punishment" for Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Chairman of the Haldia Development Authority Lakshman Seth, CPI(M) MP, holding them responsible for the massacre.
Accusing the Chief Minister of unleashing a reign of terror in the name of industrialisation, Advani said, "The villagers went to the extent of demanding capital punishment for the Chief Minister." The NDA team met victims of the police firing at Sonachura village before visiting the injured at Nandigram and Tamluk district hospital.
Pointing out that Left Front constituents and veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu had condemned the police action, Advani said the Government had forfeited its right to rule West Bengal, "particularly after the Governor and the High Court condemned the brutal killing of innocent people."
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee said, "We shall intensify our agitation in the coming days to press our demand which will begin with 'Nandigram Day' on Sunday and a subsequent march to the State Assembly on March 23." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Bengal scores a self-goal </b> link
Swapan Dasgupta
The beneficial spin-off from Nandigram is that the ugly face of the CPI(M) has been exposed nationally. The next time the fellow-travellers from Sahmat get all worked up over a film which can't find a distributor in Gujarat, the next time Brinda Karat gets herself photographed outside Parliament in the company of happy tribals (as she was last Thursday), and the next time Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee spouts a verse from Mayakovsky or Neruda, you can offer one word of retort - Nandigram.
.............
<b>And yet, gloating over Nandigram is painful. True, the CPI(M) has been put on the backfoot and the duplicity of the Congress leadership exposed. The Left intellectuals are in disarray and many have discovered their lost conscience. The debate over Special Economic Zones has merged into the national concern for the deepening crisis of agriculture throughout the country and triggered a populist backlash which will have a debilitating impact on the UPA Government. The Opposition NDA has rightly sensed an opening and drawn considerable strength from the Government's discomfiture - even if that involves parroting the likes of Medha Patkar. Amid this headiness, one minor point appears to have been forgotten - the likely impact of the Nandigram kerfuffle on West Bengal.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the flight of capital from West Bengal. The first CPI(M)-dominated United Front Government began the assault which the Naxalite movement and Congress hooliganism complemented. The decline of Bengal was, however, not purely economic. The upheavals bred a strange political culture based on self-pity, cussedness and envy - what a perceptive British commentator, in another context, described as the "grievance community." This negativism is not confined to the Left; it has infected the anti-Left forces as well. The protests - the product of a strange combination of the Trinamool Congress, the ultra-Left and Islamists - in Nandigram epitomise this self-destructiveness.
Investment in West Bengal is certain to be the biggest casualty of the Nandigram violence and the controversy over Singur. The turbulence of politics has offset all the promise and hope that its Chief Minister held out during last year's Assembly election. Ratan Tata, if not the Salem group, must be ruing the day he decided to repose faith in West Bengal</b>.
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<b>Marxists in a hole</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It is now clear that a large part of the continuing fiasco in Nandigram emanates from the rapacity and obstinacy of the <b>local Marxist heavyweight Laxman Seth</b>, Member of Parliament and chairman of the Haldia Development Authority who is the main driving force being the chemical SEZ proposed to be set up by Salim industries in the region. Elected thrice to the State Assembly and thrice to Parliament from Haldia, Mr Seth's vast personal clout also bred the kind of arrogance and authoritarianism on display by the party cadre and authorities over the past few months in Nandigram.
The fact of the matter is that ideological nuances had little or nothing to with the conflict enveloping this obscure village but naked power play by a political dada and a party drunk on repeated electoral success.
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It may be possible to free large tracts of land in India without stoking large-scale resentment.
<b>Villages in coastal southern China earn millions of dollars in rental income from leasing out land to factories. Why can't Indian farmers, too, become industrial landlords? </b>
One strategy could be for the government to form a massive real-estate investment trust, to which all acquired land that is later developed by private capital for commercial use would be assigned. <b>Both the farmers and the developers would be allotted equity in the REIT, which would earn rental income from long- term leases to industrial and commercial tenants</b>.
Every farmer whose land has been taken would earn an income from his units in the REIT.
This may be just a wild, impractical idea. There may be better solutions. The challenge is to discover them before India's road to riches runs out of land.
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Lshrni,
Better solution by Andy.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Huge cache of arms leaves CPM Red-faced </b> link
Saugar Sengupta | Kolkata
In what could be a major loss of face for the ruling CPI(M), the CBI on Sunday maintained that many of those missing after Wednesday's police firing in Nandigram could actually have been killed and buried somewhere as a diary retrieved from the arrested CPI(M) cadre might suggest.
<b>Ten alleged Marxist cadre were arrested by the Central agency on Saturday from a brick kiln with huge quantity of arms and ammunition that included 9 Japanese and 11 Indian rifles, about 700 live bullets. Also recovered from the site were Left leaflets and Red flags.</b>Â Â
Refusing to react on the recovery of firearms and ammunition reportedly from CPI(M) activists, a CPM leader said the matter was subjudice and under CBI investigation.
The accused were remanded to seven days' police custody by a Tamluk district court.
<b>CBI sources said the names of 32 people mentioned in the diary of the arrested persons matched the list of those missing surmising these people might have been bumped off the accused "at the instance of some local CPI(M) leaders" whose names have also been found in the diary. "More truth will be revealed after sustained interrogation", </b>CBI sources said.
<b>What is more, the arms found from the Janani brick kiln were supplied by anti-socials from places like Munger in Bihar, CBI sources said, adding "these were supplied by the outsiders who had come to Nandigram to deliver the consignments". At least one of the arrested persons had past criminal record. They had been directed by the local CPI(M) leadership to kill some opposition Bhoomi Ucchhed Pratirodh Committee members and torch their houses</b>, the CBI officials investigating the incident upon a Calcutta High Court order maintained.
Meanwhile, 7-8 injured persons who had gone missing after the police firing were rescued by the police on Sunday from a forest of Nandigram, police said.
<b>Elsewhere police recovered five sets of low-powered mines, one of which exploded in the wee hours of Sunday dug into the concrete fencing wall of Tata Motors at Singur. While no one was injured in the blast, district police claimed, surmising the Maoist groups active in Hooghly district could have placed the mines fixed with detonators.]</b>
In Tamluk, two women have filed a formal complaint with police alleging that some of its personnel raped them during the violence here last week, police said on Sunday.
The two women, who are under treatment at the Tamluk hospital presently, have recorded their statement before a police officer, they said. The victims, both housewives aged 27 years and 25 years, alleged that some police personnel cornered them during the melee after the firing at Sonachura village on March 14 and raped them. The formal complaint was filed after they narrated their ordeal before a NDA delegation led by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha LK Advani on Saturday.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://telegraphindia.com/1070319/asp/frontpage/story_7537027.asp
<b>Stockpile squad trail heads towards party -Phone records spill Nandigram secret </b>-IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI
Contai (East Midnapore), March 18: Ten men arrested with arms outside Nandigram have confessed they were on a CPM mission, and their cellphone records show the gang was in touch with key party leaders from East Midnapore while holed up in the brick kiln where the CBI found them yesterday.
The Telegraph got access to a copy of their statements recorded by Khejuri police and submitted in the Contai fast-track court of the judicial magistrate, which today remanded them in police custody till March 22. "We were brought a few days ago by the leaders of a political party to attack the villagers and occupy areas in Nandigram. The leaders provided us arms and ammunition and arranged for our stay in three rooms inside the brick kiln at Sher Khan Chowk," said the statement of Manoranjan Maity alias Badal, 38, one of the 10 arrested yesterday.
While the statements do not name the "political party", the inspector-general of police (western range), Arun Gupta, said: "They have told us they are CPM activists."
Along with arms and ammunition, CPM flags and helmets of the kind worn by police were seized from the hideout, triggering suspicion that the men had donned uniforms and joined security forces on the day of the firing. Cellphones found on them showed they were in touch with senior CPM leaders, sources said. A CBI official who was part of the raid team said: "Other than the numbers that we have with us, Naru Maity, the team leader, has also told us that he was in touch with these leaders whose names we cannot reveal for the moment."
The men, who said they are members of a Red Brigade, were produced in court as police struggled to keep a leash on Trinamul Congress protesters outside. "Shabai ke phansi din (hang the culprits)," the crowd chanted. "Considering the gravity and enormity of the case and the seizure from them, the accused persons are being remanded in police custody till March 22," the court said.
The preliminary investigation report the police submitted in court says: "They were preparing for a political fight against opposing political party. The leaders supplied them arms and ammunition." Action squads set up by the CPM are popularly known as Red Brigades. During bloody clashes with Trinamul supporters in the late 1990s up to the 2001 Assembly elections, the CPM had set up several such squads to take on the Opposition party.
The arrested men have told police more such gangs had arrived in and around Nandigram before Wednesday's firing on villagers opposed to land acquisition that killed at least 14. "They will help in identifying political leaders instrumental in bringing them here," an investigating officer of Khejuri police station said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>No cue from 'Q' </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
CBI must be fair to Nandigram
A cachet of arms is found, some 400 people are still reported missing, tales of fear and horror pour out, CPI(M) thugs are rounded up and interrogated - the initial CBI findings in Nandigram are telling. As always, the groundwork of India's premier investigative agency appears to be detailed and rigorous. It reveals that the CPI(M) and the Left Front government were clearly lying when they claimed that their cadre had been driven away from the villages of Nandigram and that a "reign of terror" had been unleashed by their political opponents. Obviously the <b>CPI(M) workers were still entrenched and had collected weapons - including some with Chinese markings - and were readying to move in after the 4,000-strong West Bengal Police invading army had smashed the popular resistance to the party</b>. Even so, despite the circumstantial and more substantive evidence, the CBI's findings are far from a done deal. Given the level of politicisation of the agency, it is feared that the report it submits to the Calcutta High Court - which directed it to investigate the violence in Nandigram in the first place - <b>will be written in Delhi, and influenced or otherwise "managed" by the Union Home Ministry and the Congress-led UPA Government. Given the CBI's recent history with politically high-profile cases - the most glaring example being the Ottavio Quattrocchi affair, where the agency did not challenge court verdicts against the Italian fugitive, passed up the chance of an appeal, and delayed pursuing extradition from Argentina by, initially, claiming it couldn't find a Spanish translator - there is ample room for caution</b>. After the Nandigram episode, the CBI has a chance to redeem itself and make amends for the Quattrocchi scandal. It is for the director and senior officials to stand up for the truth, rather than let their political masters dictate the report.
Unfortunately, there is already disquiet in informed circles in Delhi as to the nature of the report. There is talk of a deal between the CPI(M) and the Congress. The Communists will continue to maintain their strategic silence - give or take a few perfunctory sounds - on the Bofors cover-up if Congress Ministers bail out the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government with an innocuous CBI report on Nandigram. If indeed this were to be so, it would be tragic and amount to a double betrayal of the beleaguered people of Nandigram, who are victims, to quote Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, of a "civil war" situation. Ultimately, the onus of justice lies with Mr Dasmunsi's political seniors. Does the Congress want the reality about Nandigram, and about the barbaric manner in which the CPI(M) has tackled dissent in West Bengal for the past quarter century, to come out? Or, would it rather forget its own battles in the past, prefer the comforts of a power-sharing arrangement in Delhi and come to an arrangement? The issue goes beyond propriety and CBI autonomy. <b>It is a test, really, for the Congress's political antennae and commitment to genuine democratic spaces, which are being prised open in Bengal in a wrenching, violent process. Does the Congress want to be part of the change? The CBI report will let West Bengal, and India, know</b>.
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Corrupt Queen and Babus are again going for a deal over dead and missing innocent Indian citizen.
Mera Bharat Mahan, and people who worship these croocks are one step ahead.
After Khairlanji incidence, we had lot pictures of dead and raped humans everywhere, why there is no pictures of dead and raped sub-human of Nandigram ?
Do you see media's selective favor?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>Know where the guns came from</b>?Â
Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, March 19: The origin of a sizable portion of the arms and ammunition found by the Central Bureau of Investigation at Khejuri can possibly be traced from the sale registers of the authorised gun shops in Kolkata and the districts and the offices of magistrates.
<b>Shocking as it may sound, senior state intelligence officials suspect that some licensed firearms and ammunition, legally purchased from dealers, were used by CPI-Mâs action squad members before and during the 14 March killings.</b> And it happened despite a drive by police to restrict arms permits in East and West Midnapore after violence in Sabang, Garbeta, Pingla and their surrounding areas seven years ago. A circular was issued at the time for the antecedents of each licence-seeker to be probed there and in Purulia and Bankura. Except in special circumstances, owning inherited weapons was informally discouraged.
<b>The CBI has gathered that .315 bore bolt action rifles manufactured by the Indian Ordnance Factory, Ishapore, were brought into Nandigram by the CPI-Mâs hitmen from elsewhere.</b> Several rifles were found near a brick kiln at Khejuri. Under the Indian Arms Act, up to 50 rounds of ammunition can be purchased annually by a licence-holder. <b>Quite unsurprisingly, the CBI found fresh boxes of ammunition made by the Indian Ordnance Factory in Khirki</b>.
A .315 rifle, powerful enough to kill a bison, is worth about Rs 47,000. Its magazine loads five rounds at a time, the ammunition costing about Rs 50 apiece. Pipeguns and handmade muskets are limited in range and accuracy but the rifles deliver death from a distance of up to 200 metres.
<b>Officials said it was possible to identify the riflesâ owners by checking the serial numbers stamped on the weapons. These would also be found in sale registers</b>. The offices of magistrates and, in Kolkata, that of the deputy commissioner, Arms Act department, record the serial numbers. They also have the licence-holdersâ photographs. <b>âWeâve been told of guns being borrowed for a day or twoâ by political activists.</b> It was a common practice when the Naxalite movement was at its peak,â said a senior Intelligence Branch official. The CBIâs probe is expected to prove that the CPI-Mâs men were were as well-equipped with arms as police when Nandigram was murderously raided. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>Outsiders had role in Nandigram carnage </b>
Saugar Sengupta | Kolkata
CBI, doctors' team unearth fresh evidence
 Meanwhile, a voluntary medical team visiting Nandigram has come out with some startling revelations underscoring supreme apathy on the part of administration in dealing with the hapless victims of March 14 police firing that left 14 dead and many more injured.
A team of doctors that visited Nandigram and the neighbouring hospitals on Tuesday found that there was only<b> one doctor treating 410 people who were still admitted in various health centres around Nandigram</b>. The doctors also felt the sheer number of women injured in the firing and undergoing treatment would dent the police claim that criminals and not villagers were resisting police action.
Said a doctor requesting anonymity, "270 out of these 410 patients are women and 170 are men." He also said that 25 of the injured had sustained bullet injuries while 85 received injuries with "blunt and hard substances like lathis." While injuries sustained by some women proved molestation "or even rape," many others were hit by sharp weapons that are not used by the police, the visiting team of doctors said.
The doctors also added a general impression of the police force suggested that the subaltern class have been suffering from a deep sense of guilt after having been forced to fire by their superiors at the unarmed people, mostly women.
According to one doctor, the policemen who have since been asked to retreat to Bhangabera and Tekhali camps, away from Sonachura Bazaar and Adhikari Para, the two places that bore the brunt of the carnage, most of them have been suffering from depression. A doctor who also spoke to the cops said many cops have complained of getting hate messages from their near and dear ones back home.
"One feels that not only the patients but also the policemen would have to be given some amount of counselling in the near future as many of them want to quit their jobs," a doctor told this correspondent.
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When in power, veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu, who presided over West Bengal's decline and death, was as ruthless and callous as Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
Even before West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's critics, both within and outside the CPI(M) and the Left Front it leads, could articulate their opposition to the ghastly atrocities that were committed by the police and Marxist cadre at Nandigram on March 14, one man had set himself to the task of cranking up criticism with remarkable energy and alacrity for his age.
Veteran Marxist and former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu did not lose any time in making public his disagreement with the "anti-people action" of his successor at Writers' Building. And, if stories emanating from Kolkata are to be believed, he promptly contacted leaders of the CPI(M)'s partners in the Left Front, notably those of the RSP and the Forward Bloc, and urged them to lash out at Mr Bhattacharjee.
At an informal meeting among the Left Front partners on March 15 in Kolkata, Mr Basu, having worked himself into a right royal rage, is believed to have pitilessly castigated Mr Bhattacharjee, demanding to know, with all the pomposity that he could command, as to who had ordered the police action. As a sullen Chief Minister decided against converting the meeting into a slanging match, Mr Basu continued with his fulminations: Why did the police resort to firing? Why were protesters shot in their bellies and their heads? In the end, he accused Mr Bhattacharjee of being "arrogant" and "uncaring".
In Delhi, Mr Basu's criticism found resonance in the timid response of the CPI(M)'s tele-friendly leaders, Mr Prakash Karat and Mr Sitaram Yechury. Both let it be known that had Mr Basu been at the helm of affairs in West Bengal, they would have been spared the ignominy of having to justify such barbarity. Almost taking a cue from them, the feisty Trinamool Congress chairperson, Ms Mamata Banerjee, told newspersons that "even a respected person like Jytoibabu has condemned the police firing".
Suddenly, it would seem, Mr Basu has emerged as a better Chief Minister, a more humane administrator and a farsighted leader compared to Mr Bhattacharjee. Many of those who are spitting venom at West Bengal's accidental Chief Minister - had it not been for Promode Dasgupta, Mr Bhattacharjee would have been penning poetry overladen with darkly haunting metaphors much like his uncle Sukanto Bhattacharjee who died at the young age of 21 raging against hunger and poverty or his favourite Russian poet Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky who committed suicide - it would appear, are yearning for the good old days when Mr Basu held the 'Red Fort'.
The truth, however, is that there are no good old days to recall. If anything, Mr Basu's record in office, first as Deputy Chief Minister in two successive United Front Governments beginning 1967 (for all practical purposes he was the de facto Chief Minister with a hapless Ajoy Mukherjee reduced to indulging in Gandhiana) and later as Chief Minister for nearly a quarter of a century at the head of the Left Front Government which has been in power for three decades now, the "longest elected Communist Government" as party commissars untiringly point out to the naive and the novitiate, is a terrible tale of calculated destruction of a State in the name of ideology.
It was Mr Basu, whose feigned outrage over the police going berserk at the behest of their political masters at Nandigram is now being cited to paint him in bright colours, who actively politicised West Bengal Police. It was he who instructed them, as Deputy Chief Minister during the disastrous UF regime, to play the role of foot soldiers of the CPI(M), first by not acting against party cadre on the rampage, and then by playing an unabashedly partisan role in industrial and agrarian disputes.
The 'humane administrator' and the 'farsighted leader', few would recall today, presided over the destruction and death of industry in West Bengal, denuding the State of its wealth and disinheriting future generations of Bengalis. Within the first seven months of the United Front coming to power, he ensured 43,947 workers were laid off because of strikes and gheraoes and 4,314 rendered unemployed after their factories were shut down. Flight of capital in those initial days of emergent Marxist power amounted to Rs 2,500 million. In 1967, there were 438 'industrial disputes' involving 165,000 workers and resulting in the loss of five million man hours. By 1969, there were 710 'industrial disputes' involving 645,000 workers and a loss of 8.5 million man hours.
That was a taste of things to come in the following decades. By the time Mr Basu demitted office, West Bengal had been reduced to a vast industrial wasteland. The only beneficiaries of the policies and programmes actively promoted by Mr Basu were a clutch of Marwari asset-strippers and promoters who moved in to convert industrial wasteland into housing projects. Mr Basu remains loyal to both; even in retirement he ensures promoters violating environment and other laws have their way while those who feathered their nests thanks to 'industrial disputes' instigated by Marxist trade unionists swear by him and his able tutelage.
Mr Basu is aghast that the blood of innocent men and women should be spilled in so callous a manner by the Government headed by Mr Bhattacharjee. Yet, Mr Basu, while in office, did not brook any criticism of the Marich Jhapi massacre by his police in 1979 when refugees were shot dead in cold blood. Till date, nobody knows for sure how many died in that slaughter for Mr Basu never allowed an independent inquiry. Neither did the man whose heart bleeds so profusely for the lost souls of Nandigram hesitate to justify the butchery of April 30, 1982 when 16 monks and a nun of the Ananda Marg order were beaten to death and then set ablaze in south Kolkata by a mob of Marxist goons. The man who led that murderous lot was known for his proximity to Mr Basu, a fact that the CPI(M) would now hasten to deny. Nor did Mr Basu wince when his police shot dead 13 Congress activists a short distance from Writers' Building on July 21, 1993; on the contrary, he continues to justify that incident.
Mr Bhattacharjee's initial reaction to the horrifying killings of March 14 was no doubt that of a cynical politician not unduly perturbed by the loss of a few lives. His subsequent "regret", which party apparatchiks insist does not amount to an apology, is not becoming of a man with pretentious claims to being a poet and a playwright. But was Mr Basu any more sensitive to the plight of those who suffered at the hands of his party's thugs? Did his heart cry out when women health workers were gang-raped and then two of them murdered by thugs with Marxist affiliation on May 17, 1990 at Bantala on the eastern margins of Kolkata? Or when office-bearers of the Kolkata Police Association patronised by the CPI(M) raped Nehar Banu, a poor pavement dweller, at Phulbagan police station in 1992? If we were to recall his response to such gross abuse of power by party cadre and party-affiliated policemen - "Emon to hoyei thaakey" (Such things happen), much like former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comment, "Stuff happens" - and his sly insinuations that the victims of such barbarity deserved what they got, Mr Basu would neither shine in comparison to Mr Bhattacharjee nor come across as an angel in red.
It's amusing to watch the name-calling in the wake of the violence in Nandigram. It brings to mind an old idiom fallen into disuse, that of the pot calling the kettle black. The Bengali version, popular in north Kolkata, is too risque to be repeated here.
