People's Democracy

Violence Erupts At Nandigram As Trinamul-Maoists Run Riot

Four Refugees Killed

B Prasant

THE information that Trinamul Congress chieftain Mamata Banerjee was coming to Khejuri was enough to trigger off a planned and barbaric attack by the hardened criminals, armed and ruthless, in the pay and protection of the Trinamul Congress, the Maoists, the Naxalites, and the SUCI on the hapless refugees of the Sher Khan Chak relief camp. Four villagers lost their lives. More then thirty were wounded. A part of the relief camp burst into flames as the bombs and incendiary devices rained down.

Before the relief camp inhabitants could organise themselves enough to flee, they found four villagers lying in pools of blood, their bodies singed and burnt beyond recognition with an acrid smell filling the air. By the time, the villagers could regroup and send for medical help, three of the victims had breathed their last in extreme pain and agony.

Those killed were Sunil Bar (42), Gobindo Singh (37), and Charan Garu Das (24). Gouraloy Das (25) died on the way to Tamluk hospital. The injured are under medical care in various medical centres and hospitals around. A complete 12-hour bandh has been held under the aegis of the CPI(M) in the five blocks of Nandigram I & II, Chandipore, Khejuri, and Hendia to protest against the dastardly killing.

It is now widely believed that the popular resistance that prevents the Trinamul-Maoists-SUCI-Naxalite ‘front’ from occupying newer areas at Nandigram has made the criminals desperate. Even on the day of the bombing of the Sher Khan Chak relief camp, more than 100 people, men, women, and children, defied the ‘ban’ imposed by the forces of reaction and sectarianism on their return to their villages, and marched home, Red Flags held aloft. The criminals dared not attack these brave and completely unarmed villagers, carrying their meagre belongings on their heads.

DASTARDLY RUMOUR

Elsewhere, Mamata Banerjee staged a fruitless drama to ‘prove’ that she was shot at ‘with intent to kill,’ while she was on her way to Khejuri. Fishing out a couple of spent cartridges, her acolytes started to talk rapidly into their cell phones informing Trinamul Congress and Maoists goons at Nandigram and beyond to Kolkata to spread the rumour that Mamata Banerjee ‘has been shot at, no, shot, and killed.’

The ritual of road blockades including blocking up of highways, burning of public vehicles and attacks on CPI(M) supporters, however, did not last long as it was soon realised by the red faced goons of the Trinamul Congress that had she been actually shot or even shot at, bullets, and not cartridges would have to be ‘found’ near the ‘scene of the crime.’

Cartridges get ejected where the gun is fired and not where the bullet goes. The media, too, got a bit of crimson on the faces and had to stop abruptly running of the story of ‘Mamata Banerjee shot at Khejuri’ complete with close-ups of Trinamul Congress leaders holding up spent cartridges as ‘undeniable proof.’ Even the devoutly anti-CPI(M) Telegraph which found time to chat and extract ‘confessions’ from a dead victim of Trinamul Congress bomb attacks, did a bit of confession itself in headline, and said that there appeared to a “hole in Mamata ‘bullet.’ ”

POPULAR RESISTANCE FORCES KILLERS TO FLEE

In a brave show of fortitude and courage, several thousand unarmed people would not allow the gun-toting and hired musclemen of the Trinamul Congress and the Maoists to batter down the bridge across the Amdabad canal. This would otherwise have enabled the goons to stream into Amdabad, one of the few locales that the elements of reaction and left sectarianism are not able to occupy and control.

The chain of events started from early in the morning of October 27 when the attackers started shooting from long-range rifles and countrymade single-barrelled guns at Bahargunj and Amdabad. The attackers were led by a criminal named Qaium Kazi. The aim was to occupy Amdabad that had not yet fallen amidst a large tract that Trinamul and Maoists hooligans now run.

In the indiscriminate shooting that erupted, more than twenty villagers were injured as they ran to save their lives. Of them Golapi Garu, a 55-year old woman, Bulu Mir a girl of 10, and Debabrata Jana, a boy of 15, and Shankar Majhi (28), a CPI(M) worker had to be removed to Kolkata for treatment gauging the seriousness of the bullet wounds they had received. Others are treated at local hospitals.

The Amdabad Bridge was almost overwhelmed when the villagers came out and there ensued a mêlée. In a crowded situation, the shooting became sporadic. The Trinamul-Maoists became even more disheartened when a stray bullet fired by one of the attackers cut down Kazi who led the attack with pistols in hand.

CONSPIRACY

By now, the realisation has dawned even amongst the supporters of the Bengal opposition at Nandigram, and in the district of Midnapore east, as elsewhere, that the ‘save agricultural committee’ was not really interested in ‘saving agriculture’ but in capturing areas, with the rural polls of 2008 firmly in mind. A desperate Mamata Banerjee has called for a ‘Bangla achal (‘immobilising Bengal’) day on October 30. What prompted the declaration was her vexing inability either to support or oppose the ‘Bangla bandh’ called by the SUCI on October 31.

Elsewhere, state secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) Biman Basu has described all these bandh calls as ‘part of a blue print to destabilise the situation in Bengal.’ The Bengal CPI(M) has decided to organise big rallies, smaller group meetings, and marches all over the state during the coming weeks to protest against the attempts at disruption and to keep the people conscious of the conspiracies afoot against the Bengal Left Front government.