March 14, 2016
Nandigram Divas: 9th anniversary of the massacre during CPI(M) rule
Mamata Banerjee led a procession today to commemorate the martyrs who fell to the bullets of police and cadres, under the instructions of CPI(M).
In January 2007, farmers in Nandigram erupted in protest against a proposed special economic zone (SEZ).
On March 14, the then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya sent 2,500 policemen to ‘recapture’ Nandigram, but unofficially, they were accompanied by CPI(M) cadres.
Officially, 14 farmers died in the firing, but over 100 were declared “missing”. A similar attempt in November by the cadres finally ‘recaptured’ Nandigram. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya showed no remorse as he said, “They (farmers and Trinamool activists) have been paid back in their own coin.”
In its final report, the People’s Tribunal on Nandigram had called the violence of March 14, 2007 a “pre-planned, state-sponsored massacre” carried out “to teach a lesson” to people opposing the SEZ project on their land.
The Tribunal report, handed over to Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Governor of West Bengal on August 8, also called for the re-arrest of the ten CPI(M) cadres taken into custody earlier by the CBI but let off on bail due to the deliberate laxity of the West Bengal State police in filing charges against them within the statutory period.
