IndiaPost.com - Buddha defends police firing on Nandigram villagers

KOLKATA: Amidst protests and walk-out by opposition parties, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee justified the police firing at Nandigram in which 14 villagers were killed, while reiterating that the SEZ would not be set up there against the wishes of people.

In the House, bereft of the opposition, the chief minister making a statement on the Nandigram incident said that no government could accept absence of rule of law in any part of a state. For two and a half months, the administration could not function at Nandigram, he said.

He said that the government decided that this situation could not go on and action by the police was initiated. Bhattacharjee welcomed the Calcutta High Court ordering a CBI probe into the police firing and said that he was contemplating a judicial inquiry.

Bhattacharjee said the action by police was initiated on March 14 as his government had decided that the prevailing situation in Nandigram could not go on. Bhattacharjee also informed the House that a total of 14 people were killed in the firing, and 113 others, including 42 policemen, were injured in the violence.

Meanwhile main opposition leader Mamata Banerjee, who was prevented from going to Nandigram on March 14 night by CPI-M activists, reached Nandigram on March 15 morning, but had to be hospitalised after she was taken ill. She returned to Kolkata after her condition stabilized. Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who strongly expressed his unhappiness at the Nandigram incident, too visited the troubled areas and met the injured in hospital.

In a statement, Gandhi had said on March 14 that the killing of people could have been avoided. "What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we witnessed?" Expressing "a sense of cold horror" at the incident, he had urged the state government to mitigate the effects of the "bitter" incident quickly. The issue also rocked Parliament where the opposition demanded immediate dismissal of the West Bengal government.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, L K Advani said, "I'm outraged at the happenings in Nandigram. We are horrified that so many persons have already died, many more are critical and dozens of others have been grievously injured as a result of the pre-planned and cold-blooded firing by the police in cahoots with members of CPM." Home Secretary of the state, P R Roy conceded that the administration was caught off-guard by the strong resistence by villagers, which led to the violence.

The clashes occured when police tried to force their way into several villages from which they had been barred for over two months by people who dug deep trenches in roads to prevent them from entering. The roads were dug up following protests against the acquisition of land for a SEZ proposed to be set up by Indonesia's Salim Group.