Kolkata: A gunbattle in West Bengal's troubled Nandigram area yesterday killed two people and injured scores, prompting Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee to resign as member of parliament.
The ruling communists meanwhile flayed Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi for blaming the government for the situation.
Banerjee announced she had sent her resignation letter to New Delhi and simultaneously threatened to launch crippling statewide protests from tomorrow as West Bengal inched towards a crisis situation.
A photojournalist covering the latest violence said a middle-aged villager, Shaikh Rizaul, was killed in the firefight.
He also saw another woman, identified as Shymali Manna, brought dead to a Nandigram hospital.
Both belong to the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), a Trinamool-backed group spearheading the movement against land acquisition.
In Kolkata, West Bengal Inspector General of Police Raj Kanojia confirmed the death of Rizaul. "Several people were injured but I can only confirm the death of Rizaul now," he said.
Reports from Nandigram said the CPM men opened fire on a procession of BUPC killing and injuring people.
"One after another bullet-ridden bodies are being brought to the hospital. The police are inactive and using batons on people who demanded retrieval of the bodies since the CPM cadres are preventing them from collecting the bodies," said a shaken Bijoy Chowdhury, an award-winning photojournalist who said he had shot gruesome pictures.
Yesterday's violence began in Nandigram, in East Midnapore district, at noon between activists of the CPM and the BUPC.
"The battle started in Mahespur area. The situation is serious," East Midnapore Superintendent of Police S.S. Panda said.
Dipankar, a journalist of Tara Bangal news channel, was witness to the crossfire. "There is a hail of bullets. I can see an injured person being taken to hospital on a motorbike," he told the channel.
Plundering villages
Chowdhury said: "The situation is grave and the CPM is plundering village after village. You have to see to believe it. Bullets are flying everywhere and blood is splattered all over the place. The police are mute spectators.
Meanwhile, CPM state secretary Biman Bose termed the governor's statement on Nandigram as "unconstitutional and partisan".
On Friday, Governor Gandhi had termed the manner in which the villages in Nandigram were allegedly recaptured by the CPM as "unlawful and unacceptable".
"The ardour of Diwali has been dampened in the whole state by the events in Nandigram. Several villages in Nandigram are oscillating from deepest gloom to panic," Gandhi said in a 700-word statement.
Solidarity
Prominent personalities meet in Kolkata
The echo of the unrest was felt in Kolkata, where leading citizens, including filmmakers Aparna Sen and Rituparno Ghosh, assembled at downtown Esplanade, near the state secretariat, and expressed solidarity with the people of Nandigram, where opposition to takeover of farm land for industry is refusing to die down.
Filmmakers like Sen and Ghosh along with several other leading artistes announced a boycott of the state-organised Kolkata Film Festival (KFF) that was scheduled to begin in the evening.
"If we can protest for Rizwanur Rahman [the youth found dead after marrying the daughter of an industrialist], why not for the Nandigram people? If the CPM can attack a person like Gopal Krishna Gandhi and call him biased, then we are all biased and partial," Sen said.
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