<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>No chemical hub project at Nandigram: Buddhadeb </b> link
Kolkata, March 28: Faced with public outrage over the police firing on people opposing the acquisition of land for industry and growing unrest over the issue, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today announced that a proposed chemical hub would not be set up in Nandigram.
"We do not want clashes and bloodbath for the sake of industry, we have learnt lessons from Nandigram and we have decided at the government level that we will not go to Nandigram under any circumstances," Bhattacharjee told a rally of the CPI-M`s student wing.
But he said the chemical hub would be set up at a different location in the state. He had spoken with the Centre in this regard and a decision on the new location of the proposed hub would be taken ""within seven days".
Bhattacharjee regretted that the project could not be set up in Nandigram, saying, "The people of Nandigram failed to realise the advantage of having a chemical hub which would have changed the economy of the area."
Bhattacharjee said his government had concluded an agreement with the Indian Oil Corporation for the chemical hub.Â
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I read somewhere that the Salim Group is a Dawood Ibrahim front organization. Has anyone looked at that angle to the whole Nandigram fiasco? IOW do those local MPs and MLAs named have D-company or gangster connnections? Recall quite a few heartland gangsters have been involved in shootouts in Kolkota.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I read somewhere that the Salim Group is a Dawood Ibrahim front organization<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Enitrely possible, can't be ruled out. You may recall the 9/11 Ansari - Dubai - Calcutta connection.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>Times of India reported ..:</i>
"[Indian] CBI Director P C Sharma told visiting FBI Chief Robert S Mueller that Ansari, who claimed responsibility for [today's Calcutta] attack, had taken a ransom of Rs 37.5 million to free shoe baron Parthapratim Roy Burman through hawala channels to Dubai, CBI sources said. Out of this amount, Omar [Saeed] ... had sent $100,000 to Atta through telegraphic transfer, CBI sources said."
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Buddha scraps Nandigram SEZ project!! <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He should spend some time as trainee to Modi and then try to implement SEZ. These commies just waste time attacking Indic culture.
Where is Brinda Karkat or azmi? They had not shed a single tear in Nandigram. No chest thumping from them.
First people of Bengal should get rid of commies and goon culture from their system, and then only they can have better quality of live.
Only the best: Commies calling others violent - and justifying violence.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Tehelka
Mar 31 , 2007Â Â Exclusive Interview
'IT'S OUTRIGHT WAR AND BOTH SIDES ARE CHOOSING THEIR WEAPONS'
Chhattisgarh. Jharkhand. Bihar. Andhra Pradesh. Signposts of fractures gone too far with too little remedy. Arundhati Roy in conversation with Shoma Chaudhury on theviolence rending our heartland
Singur and Nandigram make you wonder - is the last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism? There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? In what context should it be read?
You don't have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrialising Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and going for it - high-profile leadership, media coverage, more resources than any other mass movement. What went wrong? People are bound to want to rethink strategy. When Sonia Gandhi begins to promote satyagraha at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it's time for us to sit up and think. For example, is mass civil disobedience possible within the structure of a democratic nation state? Is it possible in the age of disinformation and corporate-controlled mass media? Are hunger strikes umbilically linked to celebrity politics? Would anybody care if the people of Nangla Machhi or Bhatti mines went on a hunger strike? Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger strike for six years. That should be a lesson to many of us. I've always felt that it's ironic that hunger strikes are used as a political weapon in a land where most people go hungry anyway. We are in a different time and place now.
Up against a different, more complex adversary.
We've entered the era of NGOs - or should I say the era of paltu shers - in which mass action can be a treacherous business. We have demonstrations which are funded, we have sponsored dharnas and social forums which make militant postures but never follow up on what they preach. We have all kinds of 'virtual' resistance. Meetings against SEZs sponsored by the biggest promoters of SEZs.
Awards and grants for environmental activism and community action given by corporations responsible for devastating whole ecosystems. Vedanta, a company mining bauxite in the forests of Orissa, wants to start a university. The Tatas have two charitable trusts that directly and indirectly fund activists and mass movements
across the country. Could that be why Singur has drawn so much less flak than Nandigram? Of course the Tatas and Birlas funded Gandhi too - maybe he was our first NGO. But now we have NGOs who make a lot of noise, write a lot of reports, but whom the sarkar is more than comfortable with. How do we make sense of all this? The place is crawling with professional diffusers of real political action. 'Virtual' resistance has become something of a liability.
We are in the era of sponsored dharnas and NGOs the sarkar is comfortable with. The place is crawling with professional diffusers of real political action There was a time when mass movements looked to the courts for justice. The courts have rained
down a series of judgements that are so unjust, so insulting to the poor in the language they use, they take your breath away. A recent Supreme Court judgement, allowing the Vasant Kunj Mall to resume construction though it didn't have the requisite clearances, said in so many words that the questions of corporations indulging in malpractice does not arise! In the ERA of corporate globalisation, corporate land-grab, in the ERA of Enron and Monsanto, Halliburton and Bechtel, that's a loaded thing to say. It exposes the ideological heart of the most powerful institution in this country. The judiciary, along with the corporate press, is now seen as the lynchpin of the neo-liberal project.
In a climate like this, when people feel that they are being worn down, exhausted by these interminable 'democratic' processes, only to be eventually humiliated, what are they supposed to do? Of course it isn't as though the only options are binary - violence versus non-violence. There are political parties that believe in armed struggle but only as one part of their overall political strategy. Political workers in these struggles have been dealt with brutally, killed, beaten, imprisoned under false charges. People are fully aware that to take to arms is to call down upon yourself the myriad forms of the violence of the Indian State. The minute armed struggle becomes a strategy, your whole world shrinks and the colours fade to black and white.
But when people decide to take that step because every other option has ended in despair, should we condemn them? Does anyone believe that if the people of Nandigram had held a dharna and sung songs, the West Bengal government would have backed down? We are living in times when to be ineffective is to support the status quo (which no doubt suits some of us). And being effective comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to condemn people who are prepared to pay that price.
You have been travelling a lot on the ground - can you give us a sense of the trouble spots you have been to? Can you outline a few of the combat lines in these places?
Huge question - what can I say? The military occupation of Kashmir, neo-fascism in Gujarat, civil war in Chhattisgarh, mncs raping Orissa, the submergence of hundreds of villages in the Narmada Valley, people living on the edge of absolute starvation, the devastation of forest land, the Bhopal victims living to see the West Bengal government re-wooing Union Carbide - now calling itself Dow Chemicals - in Nandigram. I haven't been recently to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, but we know about the almost hundred thousand farmers who have killed themselves. We know about the fake encounters and the terrible repression in Andhra Pradesh. Each of these places has its own particular history, economy, ecology. None is amenable to easy analysis. And yet there is connecting tissue, there are huge international cultural and economic pressures being brought to bear on them.
How can I not mention the Hindutva project, spreading its poison sub-cutaneously, waiting to erupt once again? I'd say the biggest indictment of all is that we are still a country, a culture, a society which continues to nurture and practice the notion of untouchability. While our economists number-crunch and boast about the growth rate, a million people - human scavengers - earn their living carrying several kilos of
other people's sh1t on their heads every day. And if they didn't carry sh1t on their heads they would starve to death. Some f***ing superpower this.
How does one view the recent State and police violence in Bengal?
No different from police and State violence anywhere else - including the issue of hypocrisy and doublespeak so perfected by all political parties including the mainstream Left. Are Communist bullets different from capitalist ones?
Odd things are happening. It snowed in Saudi Arabia. Owls are out in broad daylight. The Chinese government tabled a bill sanctioning the right to private property. I don't know if all of this has to do with climate change. The Chinese Communists are turning out to be the biggest capitalists of the 21st century. Why should we expect our own parliamentary Left to be any different? Nandigram and Singur are clear signals. It makes you wonder - is the last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism? Think about it - the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnam War, the anti-apartheid struggle, the supposedly
Gandhian freedom struggle in India� what's the last station they all pull in at? Is this the end of imagination?
These are times when to be ineffective is to support the status quo. And being effective comes at a terrible price The Maoist attack in Bijapur - the death of 55 policemen. Are the rebels only the flip side of the State?
How can the rebels be the flip side of the State?
Would anybody say that those who fought against apartheid - however brutal their methods - were the flip side of the State? What about those who fought the French in Algeria? Or those who fought the Nazis? Or those who fought colonial regimes?
Or those who are fighting the US occupation of Iraq? Are they the flip side of the State? This facile new report-driven 'human rights' discourse, this meaningless condemnation game that we are all forced to play, makes politicians of us all and leaches the real politics out of everything. However pristine we would like to be, however hard we polish our halos, the tragedy is that we have run out of pristine choices. There is a civil war in Chhattisgarh sponsored, created by the Chhattisgarh government, which is publicly pursing the Bush doctrine: if you're not with us, you are with the terrorists. The lynchpin of this war, apart from the formal security forces, is the Salva Judum - a government-backed militia of ordinary people forced to take up arms, forced to become spos (special police officers). The Indian State has tried this in Kashmir, in Manipur, in Nagaland. Tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands tortured, thousands have disappeared. Any banana republic would be proud of this record. Now the government wants to import these failed strategies into the heartland. Thousands of adivasis have been forcibly moved off their mineral-rich lands into police camps. Hundreds of villages have been
forcibly evacuated. Those lands, rich in iron-ore, are being eyed by corporations like the Tatas and Essar. mous have been signed, but no one knows what they say. Land acquisition has begun. This kind of thing happened in countries like Colombia - one of the most devastated countries in the world. While everybody's eyes are fixed on the spiralling violence between government-backed militias and guerrilla squads,
multinational corporations quietly make off with the mineral wealth. That's the little piece of theatre being scripted for us in Chhattisgarh.
Of course it's horrible that 55 policemen were killed. But they're as much the victims of government policy as anybody else. For the government and the corporations they're just cannon fodder - there's plenty more where they came from. Crocodile tears will be shed, prim TV anchors will hector us for a while and then more supplies of fodder will be arranged. For the Maoist guerrillas, the police and spos they
killed were the armed personnel of the Indian State, the main, hands-on perpetrators of repression, torture, custodial killings, false encounters. They're not innocent civilians - if such a thing exists - by any stretch of imagination.
I have no doubt that the Maoists can be agents of terror and coercion too. I have no doubt they have committed unspeakable atrocities. I have no doubt they cannot lay claim to undisputed support from local people - but who can? Still, no guerrilla army can survive without local support.
That's a logistical impossibility. And the support for Maoists is growing, not diminshing. That says something. People have no choice but to align themselves on the side of whoever they think is less worse.
But to equate a resistance movement fighting against enormous injustice with the government which enforces that injustice is absurd. The government has slammed the door in the face of every attempt at non-violent resistance. When people take to arms, there is going to be all kinds of violence - revolutionary, lumpen and outright criminal. The government is responsible for the monstrous situations it creates.
'Naxals', 'Maoists', 'outsiders': these are terms being very loosely used these days.
'Outsiders' is a generic accusation used in the early stages of repression by governments who have begun to believe their own publicity and can't imagine that their own people have risen up against them. That's the stage the CPM is at now in Bengal, though some would say repression in Bengal is not new, it has only moved into higher gear. In any case, what's an outsider? Who decides the borders? Are they village boundaries? Tehsil? Block? District? State? Is narrow regional and ethnic politics the new Communist mantra? About Naxals and Maoists - well� India is about to become a police state in which everybody who disagrees with what's going on risks being called a terrorist. Islamic terrorists have to be Islamic - so that's not good enough to cover most of us. They need a bigger catchment area. So leaving the definition loose, undefined, is effective strategy, because the time is not far off when we'll all be called Maoists or Naxalites, terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, and shut down by people who don't really know or care who Maoists or Naxalites are. In villages, of course, that has begun - thousands of people are being held in jails across the country, loosely charged with being terrorists trying to overthrow the state. Who are the real Naxalites and Maoists? I'm not an authority on the subject, but here's a very rudimentary potted history.
The government has slammed the door in the face of every attempt at non-violent resistance. The government is responsible for the situations it creates
The Communist Party of India, the CPI, was formed in 1925. The CPI (M), or what we now call the CPM - the Communist Party Marxist - split from the CPI in 1964 and formed a separate party. Both, of course, were parliamentary political parties. In 1967, the CPM, along with a splinter group of the Congress, came to power in West Bengal. At the time there was massive unrest among the peasantry starving in the countryside. Local CPM leaders -Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar - led a peasant uprising in the district of Naxalbari which is where the term Naxalites comes from. In 1969, the government fell and the Congress came back to power under Siddhartha Shankar Ray. The Naxalite uprising was mercilessly crushed - Mahasweta Devi has written powerfully about this time. In 1969, the CPI (ML) - Marxist Leninist - split from the CPM. A few years later, around 1971, the CPI (ML) devolved into several parties: the CPM-ML (Liberation), largely centred in Bihar; the CPM-ML (New Democracy), functioning for the most part out of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar; the CPM-ML (Class Struggle) mainly in Bengal. These parties have been generically baptised 'Naxalites'. They see themselves as Marxist Leninist, not strictly speaking Maoist. They believe in elections, mass action and - when absolutely pushed to the wall or attacked - armed struggle. The MCC - the Maoist Communist Centre, at the time mostly operating in Bihar - was formed in 1968. The PW, People's War, operational for the most part in Andhra Pradesh, was formed in 1980. Recently, in 2004, the MCC and the pw merged to form the CPI (Maoist) They believe in outright armed struggle and the overthrowing of the State. They don't participate in elections. This is the party that is fighting the guerrilla war in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
The Indian State and media largely view the Maoists as an "internal security" threat. Is this the way to look at them?
I'm sure the Maoists would be flattered to be viewed in this way.
The Maoists want to bring down the State. Given the autocratic ideology they take their inspiration from, what alternative would they set up? Wouldn't their regime be an exploitative, autocratic, violent one as well? Isn't their action already exploitative of ordinary people? Do they really have the support of ordinary people?
I think it's important for us to acknowledge that both Mao and Stalin are dubious heroes with murderous pasts. Tens of millions of people were killed under their regimes. Apart from what happened in China and the Soviet Union, Pol Pot, with the support of the Chinese Communist Party (while the West looked discreetly away), wiped out two million people in Cambodia and brought millions of people to the brink of extinction from disease and starvation. Can we pretend that China's cultural revolution didn't happen? Or that millions of people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were not victims of labour camps, torture chambers, the network of spies and informers, the secret police. The history of these regimes is just as dark as the history of Western imperialism, except for the fact that they had a shorter life-span. We cannot condemn the occupation of Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir while we remain silent about Tibet and Chechnya. I would imagine that for the Maoists, the Naxalites, as well as the mainstream Left, being honest about the past is important to strengthen people's faith in the future. One hopes the past will not be repeated, but denying that it ever happened doesn't help inspire confidence�
Nevertheless, the Maoists in Nepal have waged a brave and successful struggle against the monarchy. Right now, in India, the Maoists and the various Marxist-Leninist groups are leading the fight against immense injustice here. They are fighting not just the State, but feudal landlords and their armed militias. They are the only people who are making a dent. And I admire that. It may well be that when they come to power, they will, as you say, be brutal, unjust and autocratic, or even worse than the present government. Maybe, but I'm not prepared to assume that in advance. If they are, we'll have to fight them too. And most likely someone like myself will be the first person they'll string up from the nearest tree - but right now, it is important to acknowledge that they are bearing the brunt of being at the forefront of resistance. Many of us are in a position where we are beginning to align ourselves on the side of those who we know have no place for us in their religious or ideological imagination. It's true that everybody changes radically when they come to power - look at Mandela's anc. Corrupt, capitalist, bowing to the imf, driving the poor out of their homes - honouring Suharto, the killer of hundreds of thousands of Indonesian Communists, with South Africa's highest civilian award. Who would have thought it could happen? But does this mean South Africans should have backed away from the struggle against apartheid? Or that they should regret it now? Does it mean Algeria should have remained a French colony, that Kashmiris, Iraqis and Palestinians should accept military occupation? That people whose dignity is being assaulted should give up the fight because they can't find saints to lead them into battle?
Is there a communication breakdown in our society?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Tehelka
Mar 31 , 2007Â Â Exclusive Interview
'IT'S OUTRIGHT WAR AND BOTH SIDES ARE CHOOSING THEIR WEAPONS'<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is good, Gandhi was on Tata and Birlas payroll. These commies are scared of "virtual" people. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Charred body of child recovered in Nandigram</b>
PNS | Nandigram: A Trinamool Congress-backed body opposing the acquisition of land on Sunday claimed to have found the charred body of a child at Bhangabera in Nandigram, scene of police firing on March 14. A Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee's core committee member said that the body was found while the group's members were digging up land under Bhangabera bridge in the hope of finding bodies of those killed in the police firing.
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CPI(M) admits mistakes in Nandigram
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Central Committee has noted that some mistakes have been committed in the handling of the affair as stated by the Chief Minister (of West Bengal)
Prakash Karat, Party General Secretary
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"Mistakes"!! Isn't that an understament?
<b>Nandigram: Communism as fascism </b>
by Rajeev Srinivasan
Read part I and part II
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Church offers to mediate in Nandigram
PTI | April 17, 2007 | 11:10 IST
With tension still simmering at Nandigarm, the scene of the March 14
police firing on villagers protesting land acquisition for an SEZ, the
Roman Catholic Church in Kolkata has stepped in with a peace
initiative, offering to mediate between the warring sides.
"We are ready to mediate. We have sought an appointment with the Home
Secretary next week for this," Father I P Sarto, spokesman of the
Church Seva Kendra in Kolkata, told PTI.
Archbishop of Kolkata Lucas Sircar, Bishop of Baruipur Salvadore Lobo
and Bishop of Asansol Cyprian Monis have lent full support to the
Kendra's initiatives.
The Kendra has begun a camp at the trouble-torn Sonachura under
Nandigram block since Good Friday. The camp is at present offering
trauma counselling to the families affected in the violence on March
14.
Father Sarto, who visited the affected areas along with a team
comprising clergy and lay volunteers, said that most of the families,
especially children, were still traumatised after the March 14 firing
and the violent incidents that followed.
Nearly 100 families in the area have so far approached the camp for
its services, Sarto said. He said that those managing the camp have
been instructed to offer "whatever protection they can" to the
villagers in the event of further violence.
"The police are not entering the area and the villagers are very
vulnerable." The Seva Kendra was also looking at possibilities of
providing material relief to the affected villagers of Nandigram.
"We approached the State Relief minister, but he said his department
could intervene only during natural disasters. So we are looking into
what best can be done to give some relief to the villagers."
04-19-2007, 09:27 AM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2007, 09:30 AM by Husky.)
<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Apr 19 2007, 12:21 AM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Apr 19 2007, 12:21 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Church offers to mediate in Nandigram http://www.rediff.com///news/2007/apr/17nandi.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[right][snapback]67360[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's what christianity often does. It's how it got its little claws into Nagaland too. Until then, attempts to convert Nagaland were going nowhere. Christoterrorism preys on the vulnerable, because it knows it has no chance against people who are feeling safe and comfortable.
It had tried the same on post-Killing Fields Cambodia.
If one does some deeper digging, you'll find that many of the conflicts are especially precipitated by christos for this reason, for example Nigeria and many another African nation. Nepal could become another example case in time.
<b>WARNING :</b>
Video of Nandigran - Utter shame, isolate the apologists, Commies and Marxist are shameless-
<b>POGROM by ruling Communist Party of India</b>
This film is based on original video footage of 14 march massacre of peasants, in Nandigram, West bengal. CPM, a left party Government and UPA are responsible for this http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...0373821154
<b>Violence erupts in Nandigram again; no casualties</b>
Rival groups of villagers exchange gunfire as ousted CPI(M) supporters try to re-enter their domain, say police
Express News Service
Kolkata, April 27: Even as Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee called an all-party meet to discuss Nandigram, where 14 people lost their lives in police firing on March 14, violence erupted in the area once again on Friday. There were, however, no casualties this time.
Rival groups of villagers hurled bombs and exchanged gunfire across a canal at Bhangaberia as the ousted supporters of the CPI(M) tried to re-enter their domain, from where they had been turned out in January, said the police.
East Midnapore district police superintendent G Srinivas said: "Two rival groups were facing across a culvert and exchanged gunfire from a distance. No one was injured, and the crowds had dispersed by the time the police reached." He said the firing lasted for about an hour and stopped around noon.
Later in the evening, CPI legislator Mohammed Iliyas, representing Nandigram, was heckled by the supporters of the Save Land Committee led by the Trinamool Congress when he tried to organise a peace meeting in his Chowringhee village.
Iliyas had tried to explain that since the government has withdrawn its orders for land acquisition there was no point in persisting with tension. <b>Iliyas was earlier accused by the CPI(M) of having instigated the anti-acquisition movement</b>.
Trinamool leader Sisir Adhikari, who is in charge of the district, said CPI(M) supporters from Khejuri side tried to capture Nandigram.<b> "They opened fire on us first, following which the Save Land Committee members chased them," </b>said Adhikari.
Ashok Guria, the CPI(M)'s pointman, said: "It has been nearly four months since our supporters were ousted from the area and living in relief camps maintained by the party." Guria said Friday's incident was an expression of this frustration.
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Communist goons are back. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>1 killed, 2 hurt in Nandigram violence</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One person was killed and two others were injured in sporadic clashes between supporters of ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist and Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee, spearheading the movement against land acquisition, in Nandigram on Sunday.
....
Local police said that bombs were hurled and gunshots exchanged between CPI-M and BUPC activists as clashes continued for the third consecutive day today at Nandigram.
<b>They said trouble began on Sunday morning when about 100-200 people from Khejuri tried to enter Nandigram in batches.</b>
Gunshots were also heard from Bhangabera, Satingabari, Adhikaripara and Shimulkundu areas in Nandigram, the police said.
Trinamool Congress legislator Sisir Adhikari alleged that the CPI-M cadres were attacking people at Nandigram from Khejuri and creating a reign of terror
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Simmering tension erupts into violence </b>
Saugar Sengupta | Nandigram/East Midnapore
Pioneer.com
Three killed, 36 hurt as CMP's mobike brigade invades Nandigram
Nandigram woke up to yet another bloody morning on Sunday. In an exchange of fire between CPI(M)'s Harmat Brigade and Opposition Trinamool Congress-backed Bhumi Ucchhed Pratiorodh Committee, three persons were killed and many others left injured.
The district police confirmed Dilip Mondal of Gokulnagar and Mohitosh Karan of Jambari died of bullet injuries but IG Law and Order Raj Kanojia spoke of only one death saying other bodies might have been dragged away by the villagers. East Midnapore district CPI(M) leader Niranjan Sihi claimed the dead belonged to his party. Three "seriously wounded" persons were being treated at Karada hospital, sources said.
The clash was reported to have begun when an armed motorcycle gang followed by about 1,000 armed men coming from Baharganj area on the Khejuri side tried to enter Nandigram. Bombs were hurled and bullets fired on both sides and at least 15 houses of alleged CPI(M) supporters were ransacked or set on fire, source said.
The Sunday's violence came two days after local CPI legislator Md Iliyas was assaulted by alleged BUPC supporters.
A "joint venture", as Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee later put it, between the 'IPS cadre' and the Marxist cadre stoked the Sunday's fire that engulfed Nandigram.
"The CPI(M)'s Harmat Brigade attacked while the police looked the other way," claimed local Trinamool MLA Sisir Adhikary, but could not explain, while the dead bodies were recovered near Khejuri, a CPI(M) fortress. Informed sources said Dilip was dragged out of his house and shot by the culprits.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Bleeding wound</b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
CPM militia assault Nandigram
Those who tend to scoff at the ongoing violence at Nandigram because it is far away from Lutyen's Delhi or whitewash the criminality of Marxist cadre who are to primarily blame for the continuing bloodletting in that corner of West Bengal, shall one day be confronted with a crisis of gargantuan proportion and far-reaching ramifications. For, what is happening at Nandigram is not merely about the police failing in its task to maintain law and order or the ruling political party of a State flexing its muscles: It is an example of a Government playing a complicit role in promoting violence for narrow political considerations and, unless checked without any further delay, it will become a running sore and spread rapidly across West Bengal, sucking the State into a vortex of violence not dissimilar to that which was witnessed during the bloody decades of the '60s and '70s. Ever since the midnight violence of January 7 when Marxist cadre clashed with villagers reluctant to part with their land for a Special Economic Zone, Nandigram has remained on the boil. In an ironic twist to the CPI(M)'s politics of imposing its diktat with the help of party hoodlums, <b>the Marxists were first confronted with cadre turning renegade rather than handing over their land, and then turning on their former comrades with a viciousness that could not but have taken the party leaders by surprise</b>. In West Bengal, renegades are not known to have struck back; but they did in Nandigram. Of course, they have paid a terrible price for it. On March 14, Marxist cadre, backed by policemen eager to demonstrate their political loyalty, descended on Nandigram and killed at least 14 men and women; many are still missing since that rapacious assault. It is unlikely their whereabouts will ever be established in what is often described as the CPI(M)'s 'Red Fort'.
After that 'Black Wednesday', we have heard Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declaring that land will not be acquired at Nandigram and that a similar "administrative lapse" will not be repeated. Obviously, neither Mr Bhattacharjee nor his party believes in undoing the mistakes that have left Nandigram bleeding so profusely. On the contrary, to regain lost territory, the party has unleashed the fury of Marxist militia on the hapless villagers of Nandigram, setting a dangerous trend that signals terrible times ahead. A foretaste of what awaits those who stand up to Marxist thuggery was available on Sunday when armed party cadre riding motorcycles, in a replay of the depredations of the Hell's Angels in the US, tried to hoist the CPI(M)'s banner on 'enemy' land. They were rebuffed and are believed to have lost three of their men. But this is unlikely to dampen the Marxists' appetite for violence. We can be sure that more such attempts will be made to takeover Nandigram from the renegades. What adds a particularly sinister dimension to the saga of killings and counter-killings is the reported presence of ultra-Left extremists who are using the fields of Nandigram to re-launch the 'revolution' - launched from Naxalbari in the 1969 - that failed, but not before it had devoured West Bengal's best and the brightest. Tragically, a large number of innocent people, who just want to get on with their lives as tillers of small plots of land, find themselves caught in the crossfire. The Centre can no longer stand mute witness. It must act, and act now, by invoking Article 355.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>CPM cadre assault TV crew at Nandigram </b>
Pioneer News Service | Kolkata
On Monday, West Bengal CPI(M) secretary Biman Bose claimed that he had definite information that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had planned Sunday's attack on Marxist cadre during her trip to Nandigram on April 25. A day later, his claim was dented by a near-fatal attack on mediapersons by alleged Marxist cadre living in 'refugee' camps.
<b>A journalist of a television channel, his cameraman and support staff were brutally beaten up and their equipment and vehicles damaged by CPI(M) supporters who wanted them to telecast their side of the story</b>. The attack took place near Giribazar-Satnenga-Khejuri zone, dominated by the CPI(M).
"We were hurt and our camera and van were damaged, but we managed to flee from the spot in time," said the Ritabrato Bhattacharjee, a journalist, adding that how local CPI(M) leaders were defied and even abused by their cadre when they tried to intervene. These people alleged they were forced to leave their villages at Nandigram by the Trinamool Congress-led Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee.
"We realise that this particular channel has not been severe on us, still we could not control our men because banished from their homes and fields they are starved and scared for the last four months. They want to go back to their villages, but cannot do so for fear of their lives. <b>This is a political war being controlled by the Opposition," </b> <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo--> said an East Midnapore CPI(M) district committee member regretting the assault on mediapersons.
A helpless looking Biman Bose, known much for his wagging tongue, sounded somewhat mellow while condemning the attack and plucking incidents from history books on how his party had taken stern action against cadres "who punctured tyres while in a procession". But he was non-committal on what action he would take against his Nandigram comrades. The same helplessness was visible on Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's face who earlier told an inquisitive media "Sobito bujhi kintoo ki korbo apnarai boloon na (I understand everything, but tell me what to do now)."
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They had not made link with RSS,VHP,Bajrang Dal or Sangh Parivar yet.
Neither any visit by Azmi, Roys or other commies.
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