Patkar slams Bengal Govt from under preventive arrest

Kolkata, Jan 10 (UNI) Accusing the West Bengal Government of violating democratic rights and breaking the law to suppress her movement, social activist Medha Patkar today said she would fight "to the end" against acquisition of farm land.

"The Left Front Government is violating democratic rights and civil liberties...it is violating the law by transferring agricultural land...we will take our struggle ahead and take the fight to the logical end even on legal aspects," she told UNI while in "preventive custody" of police.

Police whisked away the Narmada Bachao Andolon leader and three of her associates in the noon as they moved out of a house in the Salt Lake area on the eastern fringe of the city in a bid to go to Howrah station on her way to Singur.

She was leading a five-member team to go to Singur, where prohibitory orders under Section 144 Cr PC were in force.

Ms.Patkar was put in a vehicle where she stayed through the afternoon and much of the evening.

Earlier, Ms.Patkar was told by police that she would be arrested if she visited Singur.

''Ms Patkar and her associates have been taken into preventive custody of police under section 151,'' Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb told reporters.

But alleging that police acted beyond the law by keeping her under watch in a house, she said this reflected the anti-democratic attitude of the Government. "The Government knows that what it is doing is illegal and that is the reason it calls illegal any act of protest against land acquisition," she said.

Ms.Patkar demanded to police that she be given a memo for her detention in accordance with a Supreme Court verdict. Though police complied with, she refused to sign it disagreeing on the time to be mentioned on the paper.

Later, sources close to her said they would file an FIR with police on the ground of illegal confinement. "It is only after that she will sign the memo before being released," they said.

Ms.Patkar had been detained and arrested twice last month when she tried to visit Singur, a scene of recent turmoil over the government's move to take over the agriculture farm land for the proposed Tata Motors' small car project.

UNI