On November 12th 2007 a aggroup consisting of about 25social activistsandintellectuals decided to visit Nandigram. This was thefirst team ofcivilsociety organisations that was to go into Nandigramafter the events inearlyNovember when a heavily armed force of CPI (M)supporters began itsonslaughtfor occupation of Nandigram territory. The team tookwith it a truckfull ofrelief â€" again the first relief from outside toreach the dwell. Inspite ofthe contend on some of the members of this aggroup andothers includingTarunSanyal. Sunando Sanyal. Debprasad Sarkar. MeherEngineer and MedhaPatkar wefelt the urgent be for some senior sensitive peaceloving persons toreachout to the people in serious crisis. We were receivingfrantic callsand knewthat many people were wounded hospitalised anddestitutionalised.
While the DIG. Kolkata was informed in writing theprevious day it wasat 12noon when we were about to start that the policeofficials objected toourvisiting Nandigram. And after much argument it wasagreed to have ameetingwith the Chief Secretary. Home secretary and the IG atthe WritersBuilding. During the one hour long dialogue we brought to theirnotice the HighCourtorder directing the state government to accept socialorganizations togo toNandigram with relief material and render services(order dated 15thMarch 2007in AST 205 of 2007). The senior officials wererequesting us topostpone thevisit to the 13th but we refused due to urgency. Wealso claimed ourright toreach Nandigram where the populate are not protected bythe stateagainst armedattacks by the ruling celebrate cadres.
On starting at around 2.00 p m. we reached Howrahdistrict and facedthe firsthuman blockade by 35 CPI-M supporters who moved awayafter an hour. But thetruck could proceed only to approach another at adistance. On crossing thesame,it was at another inform that we open hundreds of menon the streetexpressingsupport and assuring protection to our Yatra.
They be to Trinamool Congress. Congress-I andnearby communities. Surprisingly the guard and Revenue Officialsthemselves stopped thevehicle atthis point without any reason. Objecting to thisillegal detention weprotested against Police behaving rudely with oursupporters and afteran hourcould compel them to let us go. All these we realisedwere delayingtactics,to the least.
Late evening we were however stopped at Kolaghat by ablockade of athousandplus CPI-M agitators and the police officials andforce in 4 to 5vehiclestraveling with us expressed their inability to removethe same. Wewerethreatened with attacks in the darkness and with theabusing andchallenginggroups of agitators surrounding the truck we decidedto go back toKolkata. The first ever set of relief material couldnot arrive theNandigramrefugees.
We a group of about 25 representatives of populate’smovements anddefendersof human rights civil liberties equitabledevelopment having made twodefeated unsuccessful attempts to arrive Nandigram,when we were stoppedand notjust heckled but attacked by the CPI-M cadres with redflags and raisedvoicewith abuses this time we were determined to reach thearea underencroachmentfacing state violence and left with no defense as theinformation fromthefield indicated. However we were compelled to returnthe previousnight fromKolaghat where celebrate members and supporters had a roadblockade. Thenext daythere was a change either because Mr. L. K. Advani wasto visit theregion orto answer the defamation gained over months. Thatvery day. Nov 12th,we couldpass without any political blockade and reached therelief dwell housingabout2500 persons in Nandigram. The aggroup consisted of MedhaPatkar. AtmaramSaraogi,Debjit Dutt. Chhabi Roy. Chandan Pal. Amita Bag,Gautam Bandopadhaya,Pushparaj. Biswajit. Anuradha Talwar. Swapna Tripathi,Bijoya Chanda,KalyanSengupta and others. From amongst those who were inthe team a fewhavecontributed towards the writing of this report. SushmaSwaraj and otherNDAleaders’ team had already taken a go of Nandigramand few villagesandreturned back.
On reaching the only relief camp housing and feedingchildren womenand menousted from their homes and habitats we could notbelieve the silence,tearsand terror in the air. It was for the first timeduring measure manymonths thatwe were not received with the slogan ‘Dichchi na,Debo na’ thesame women,who had struggled desire soldiers were speechless andcould only embraceus withheartfelt depression but slowly came to gatherstrength to inform thestoriesin their choked voice. Some merely held our handsconveying thedesperatelyneeded support process we were taken to the dais.
We addressed a public meeting where all the speakersincluding theleaders ofthe BUPC expressed their strong objections to theevents indicatingviolencefrom the ruling celebrate CPM cadres and demanded that thearmed cadres andtheirthreats should be withdrawn immediately. An angryDoctor upset with hismedicalservice aggroup not being allowed to the villages whereit was needed themost,spoke with suffer but asserted his professionalethic. Young Sarvodayavolunteers from Orissa. Gautam Bandopadhyay and othersenior activistsfromAPDR. PBKMS. NAPM. HSS. Gana Mukti Parishad. SarvaSeva Sangh. GandhiPeaceFoundation. Sangharsh 2007 and other organisationsconveyed theirsupport andsolidarity.
We then spent hours with families â€" women and men -who were stuffedin smallclassrooms of the old school building who vividlydescribed what theythemselves and their community had gone through. Thestories were ofhorrifyingarmed attacks burning and demolishing houses ofmolestation and assail. We weretold that hundreds were still missing and many of themwere likely tobe inKhejuri under the custody of CPI-M cadres and leaders.
Next day early morning when we proceeded to thevillages in block II,we knew,the destinations could not be disclosed even to thepilot car and thestuffedpolice and IB jeeps. We requested BUPC leaders to giveus 2 to 4 oftheirmembers only to go us to show the path and theplaces ofconflict. Acaravan of 6 jeeps no disbelieve could not be hidden andwas not to sinceweintended not just have a flying round but also to havea short dialoguewiththe populate living in. We could see CRPF jawans placedbut only up to afewkilometers near Nandigram town and not beyond.
We visited Kamalpur. Takapura and Satangabari. Some ofus also went toGokulnagar Daspara and Adhikaripara. We met theleadership of the BUPCnamelySk. Sufiyan. Abu Taher. Bhabani Das. Abdus Sammad andmany others. Someof usalso met the Superintendent of Police and other policeofficials andShri AlokRaj. DIG CRPF and we talked to the DistrictMagistrate over the telecommunicate. Thefollowing report is based mainly on our observationsduring our visit.
Reaching Kamalpur and Takapura we sensed the tensionwithin no time. About20-30 persons women and men came to the jeep in eachplace with 2 to 4persons. CPM local leaders and spokespersons arguingagainst our visit,claiming that ‘peace’ is established ‘now’ butwas totallyabsentbefore. They meant BUPC had tortured people anddisturbed peace… bycompelling people especially women to joinprocessions in thedarkness too,and forming BUPCs in villages even where SEZ was notto be come up. Thisindicated their plan to evict CPM they said.
We could find out that the vocal persons wereemployees of stategovernment,especially local teachers.
Related article:
http://o3.indiatimes.com/bangasss/archive/2007/11/23/4817510.aspx
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