Tiger by the tail: CPM 'provoked' in Nandigram By IBNlive.com Monday December 10, 12:20 AM (http://in.news.yahoo.com/071209/211/6o8en.html)
Nandigram: CPI-M supporters in Nandigram, West Bengal, allege they were forced to take "matters in their own hand" because the government failed to protect them from the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), an anti-land acquisition group.
"There was tremendous pressure on our supporters and cadres to join the BUPC. Some of our local cadres did indeed join the movement, but when the government failed to intervene we took the matters in our hand. It was a tit-for-tat method of solving the problem," says Mohammad Yasin, a member of the CPI-M's zonal committee in Nandigram.
Yasin has a good reason to hate the BUPC: the group burnt his house a week before CPI-M's armed attack on Nandigram. Between January and November, BUPC activists looted, vandalised or burnt 153 houses of CPI-M supporters.
Anti-land acquisition protestors damaged the house of Samerun Bibi and her husband Sheikh Abdul Razak, both CPI-M leaders, after the West Bengal government decided to set up a Petrochemical and Petroleum Investment Region (PCPIR) in Nandigram in December 2006.
Samerun Bibi, the panchayat pradhan of Kalicharanpur, called a meeting of the panchayat on January 3, 2007 to discuss the arrangements to receive a Central team, which was visit Nandigram to take a look at its sanitation. Anti-land acquisition protestors attacked the office, fuelled by rumours that the panchayat meeting would approve land acquisition in Nandigram.
"The Trinamool Congress gave false information to villagers that their land would be taken away without any compensation. By spreading such untruths they successfully won over CPI-M supporters in Nandigram," alleges Sheikh Abdul Razak, a CPI-M local committee member in Sonachura.
Around 3,000 CPI-M members were driven out of their homes by the BUPC activists and had to live in camps like refugees. "There were 15 camps housing 3,000 people. Nandigram was liberated on the morning of November 11 and we entered in the evening," says Kalipada Mondal, a CPI-M local committee member in Sonachura.
CPI-M supporters, who lived as refugees between January and November after BUPC seized control of Nandigram, were told on November 6 that the party is making arrangements for their homecoming.
"All of us who had run away from our homes were told to assemble in Khejuri on November 6. We were told that we would be returning home on November 10. First the party gunmen entered and then we entered behind them," says Prashanto, a CPI-M panchayat committee member.
Accompanied by CNN IBN and a CRPF team, Nabakumar Samantha revisited whatever remained of his home and land in Nandigram. His brother, Shankar Samantha, was the first CPI-M leader to be killed in the Nandigram.
Shankar was beaten and burnt alive by anti-land acquisition protestors on January 7. Nabakumar's family owned a major chunk in the land that was proposed to be acquired for the chemical hub.
"Since we were in favour of selling the land and in favour of industrialization, they attacked us so that it would become an example of what could happen to others who thought like us," says Nabakumar.
The BUPC, backed by the Trinamool, allegedly killed 26 CPI-M supporters between January and November. "They (the BUPC) brought fighters and gangsters from Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar," alleges Lakshman Seth, CPI-M MP from Haldia and chief of the Haldia Development Authority.
Both the CPI-M and the BUPC brought in gunmen from outside Nandigram. The CPI-M was worried that the Trinamool would sweep the panchayat elections in Nandigram and surrounding areas if BUPC's consolidated its 11 month-long siege and control over Nandigram.
"They wanted to use Nandigram as an example to take over power in West Bengal. They first wanted to take over the panchayat samiti in Nandigram and then take over as MLA and MP—that was their plan," says Ashok Bera, CPM zonal committee leader.
"Their political game plan was to capture our ground—our political field. Their intention was to oust CPI-M party from Nandigram. If this model had succeeded they could have used this model elsewhere," says Seth. And that the CPI-M would never allow.
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