People's Democracy

Trinamul Congress, Naxalites In Murder Spree At Nandigram 

B Prasant

SIX CPI (M) workers were brutally gunned down and lynched at Nandigram in east Midnapore during the night of January 6 by murderous goons of the Trinamul Congress and the Naxalites, aided and abetted by the SUCI. Having done the evil deed, as is their wont, the outfits gave a call for a 12-hour Bengal bandh on January 8.

Bengal Left Front chairman Biman Basu called upon the democratic-minded people of Bengal to keep life normal, and has prevailed upon all concerned at Nandigram to maintain peace and calm. Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has identified the murder spree as hooliganism from a bunch of frustrated people representing discredited political outfits out to destabilise the process of industrialisation and development in Bengal.

The range of events starting from arson, ransacking, attack on villagers, burning down of CPI(M) offices and Gram Panchayat offices started right from the late night of January 3. Earlier to this, the Bengal opposition had been mustering forces at Nandigram on the plea of ‘preventing the state government from setting up an industrial project.’ 

Actually, having been witness to the Singur instance of ‘opposition’ splutter out with a whimper, the opposition worthies, their political credibility at rock bottom, were desperate enough to go in for intense violence of the selective kind here at Nandigram to create chaos out of normalcy. The opposition also hired out private TV channels to record the events that were to be unleashed on the villagers, for subsequent beaming, after a liberal dose of ‘editing’ of the lying kind.

The opposition worthies lay in wait for an opportunity, any opportunity in fact, that would be latched on to, to unleash violence. A meeting was going on at the Kalicharanpur Gram Panchayat on the agenda of declaring east Midnapore as a pollution free, Nirmal, district. Government officials were present. 

VICIOUS RUMOUR

A vicious rumour was spread that a notification has been issued for land takeover in the Nandigram villages, and that the officials met to finalise the villages to be ‘taken over’ for an industrial project, and without either consent of the villagers or with any thought for compensation. 

When the rumour itself would not work, the Trinamul Congress-Naxalite goons (a convenient right-ultra left combination of crass opportunism against the CPI(M) and the Left Front) launched an armed assault on the Gram Panchayat office. The hooligans brandishing swords, machetes, and country-made handguns, chased away the Panchayat members and the officials. They set fire to vehicles, and when a police picket arrived attacked the police personnel, snatched rifles, and torched police vehicles. 

The same morning, Trinamul Congress-Naxalite goons led an attack on the office of the industrial development corporation in Kolkata. They wrecked computer work stations and tore up documents before being chased away by the employees.

MURDER SPREE AND THE MEDIA

Throughout the night of January 5, the Trinamul Congress-Naxalite goons, led and coordinated by outsiders from Kolkata, dug ditches across roads that connected the 21 villages of the Nandigram area, demolished bridges, and culverts, and blew up a transformer plunging the whole area into darkness. CPI(M) offices were attacked, ransacked, torched. Houses of CPI(M) leaders like Niranjan Mondol were set on fire by goons armed with guns and machetes. 

AS the CPI (M) and Left Front workers showed restraint, they were set upon, evicted from their villages at the gun-point and money forced out of them as they left their hearth and home. We recall to mind the atrocities of the Trinamul Congress at Keshpur during 1999-2000. However, the episode did not end there.

Throughout the night of January 7, a series of attacks were launched against CPI(M) workers and supporters some of whom had taken shelter in a set of temporary camps away from their villages. The private TV channels kept the video cameras rolling with the chortle of the commentators barely hid, and the macabre spectacle was unfolded before the viewers as CPI(M) workers were gunned down and lynched to death. The TV channels then started to ‘editorialise’ that the attack was launched by the CPI(M) and that the victims were all members of the bogus paper organisation called the ‘save agriculture committee’, a mask for the Trinamul Congress-Naxalite-SUCI combine.

Bengal unit secretary of the CPI(M) and the state LF chairman Biman Basu condemned the undemocratic movement of the Trinamul-Naxalites-SUCI combine and said that those who were responsible for the mayhem and murder sprees must own up their nefarious role. Biman Basu said that the call for a bandh was completely unjustified and called upon the people to keep life normal on January 8. 

Biman Basu said those who killed and those who were killed were poor people and said that the war amongst the poor must stop forthwith. Biman Basu condemned the atrocious opposition to developmental projects of the Bengal Left Front government and called upon the opposition to see reason.