India - Security

Four killed in land protests in India's West Bengal

Source : AFP 08.01.2007

KOLKATA, India, Jan 8, 2007 (AFP) - The death toll in clashes over the proposed purchase of farmland to build special economic zones in India's Marxist-ruled West Bengal state has risen to four, police said Monday.

The violence is the latest in a series of nationwide protests, mainly by poor villagers, against the government buying farmland for private investment projects.

Two people were reported killed Sunday. About a dozen people were also injured when a group of armed men raided the village of Nandigram, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the state capital Kolkata in a land dispute, senior police official Shyamal Bhattacharya said.

The officers fired at villagers keeping watch to block government officials from giving notice of the takeover of the land, police said.

"We are still waiting for details about the violence," Bhattacharya said.

West Bengal's Marxist administration has announced plans to buy 14,500 acres (5,867 hectares) of land for Indonesia's Salim group to set up a chemical hub under an agreement clinched in July.

The purchase is part of the state government's plans to take some 36,000 acres of land to set up "special economic zones" -- privately-run enclaves with world-class infrastructure and tax breaks.

Tension in Nandigram has simmered since Wednesday, when angry villagers fought pitched battles with police and attacked government offices following rumours that the government had formally taken over the land.

The unrest prompted Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal, to issue a statement saying the land has not yet been bought by the state government.

Last month, Indian President Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened to persuade a West Bengal opposition leader to call off a 25-day hunger strike against a car factory to be built on farmland by the country's India's Tata group.

Transport was disrupted and schools and colleges across the state were closed in response to a call for strike by opposition parties Monday.

Protests have also erupted in eastern Orissa state against the proposed billion-dollar projects by steel giants Arcelor-Mittal and Korea's POSCO which would be sited on farm land.

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