Kolkata, Mar 24: Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee has sought action against West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee over the recent killings of 14 persons in police firing at Nandigram.
In Nandigram the massacre of farmers and rape of women by security forces and police stalled proceedings in Indian Parliament for the fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, forcing adjournment of both Houses.
Reports from human rights organisations in West Bengal expressed deep concern on the incident in Nandigram. Reports say that some villages like Adhikaripara and Gokulnagar are literally deserted. Fact finding teams report that both the police and the CPI (M) activists were terrorising the villagers. For instance, witnesses say that the local Member of Parliament, Mr. Lakshman Seth, had allegedly brought in criminals who were given police uniforms and country guns to shoot, kill, and plunder. These criminals, alongside the police force, had attacked the villagers.
Bhattacharjee and his fellow Stalinists claim that the villagers of Nandigram, Singur and other places designated for SEZs will benefit from capitalist development. In fact, as has been shown by the past 15 years of neo-liberal reform in India, capitalist development will strengthen the hold of big business over all aspects of socio-economic life, promote an ever-wider gap between the rich and poor, and increase poverty and economic insecurity. Moreover, the peasants of Nandigram are well aware that most of them lack the skills to be employed in modern industry and that the monetary compensation offered by the government can be quickly consumed, leaving them with no means of livelihood. The massacre at Nandigram has shattered the pretensions of the Left Front and the CPM to defend India's workers and toilers and shown them to be agents of domestic and international capital who stand ready to unleash violent state repression against working people. ~ Kranti Kumara
Eleven persons were killed and 34, including 14 policemen, injured when the police opened fire on a violent crowd in the strife-torn Nandigram area in West Bengal on Wednesday.
