Opposition incited violence in Nandigram: CPI(M)

New Delhi, Jan 9 (UNI) The CPI(M) today asserted that a "misinformation campaign" was going on regarding the Nandigram incident and charged the Trinamool Congress, Congress and the ultra-Left sections with "meticulous planning" and said the Left Front government in West Bengal is not "insensitive." In a three-page "detailed account" of Nandigram developments since January three, the CPI(M), under fire from the Trinamool, BJP, Congress, and the Left constituents- the CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc- claimed that it was "committed to the peasantry, sharecroppers, agricultural workers and the rural poor." At least seven people were killed and several injured in group violence on Sunday over land acquisition for Indonesia-based Salim Group's SEZ project at Nandigram in East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

The CPI(M) Central Committee said here that the developments were "not a spontaneous outburst" but a" planned attack led by the Trinamool and ultra Left elements committed to violence." Besides, despite huge provocation the administration had displayed the utmost caution in not using the police so as to enable a normalisation of the situation, it added.

The Left party said the recent trouble in Nandigram on January three was the "handiwork of the opposition parties including the SUCI, some Naxalite factions and fundamentalist forces." "In the afternoon on January four,the so-called ' Nandigram Bhumi Raksha Committee( NBRC)' destroyed bridges and culverts linking roads. They burnt a 25 KV electric substation," it said.

"For the next two days, the NBRC blocked the roads within the villages, prohibited every movement and raised money forcibly from the people. The Trinamool, Congress leaders went there and issued threats of more violence. But the police did not enter the village at all.

Rather the police convened a meeting on January 5 in Nandigram police station and leaders of Trinamool, SUCI, Jamait Ulema were present. They verbally agreed to maintain peace and then reacted very differently in the villages.

On midnight of January 6, armed miscreants of NBRC attacked the camps of CPI(M) workers who took refuge. The attackers hurled bombs.

The CPI(M) workers were forced to resist and in the ensuing clash two of the attackers were killed," the Left party claimed.

"In the meantime the armed gangs of NBRC unleashed mayhem within the village which resulted in the killing of five CPI(M) activists.

Two party sympathisers were also missing, who had been killed," it said.

The CPI(M) gave the names of all those killed and the missing persons.

To cover up the" killing" the Trinamool, Congress and others called a bandh on January 7 night and 8th morning they burnt two CPI(M) offices in Talapati Bhekutia- Dibanandpur, it alleged.

UNI