Mamata stakes life to protect farmland

Nandigram, Feb 4 (UNI) Vowing she would not allow acquisition of farmland till she was alive, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today called upon the farmers to build up fierce resistance to any takeover of their plots for industry.

''Land will not be given till I am alive. We shall not succumb to any pressure,'' she told a huge rally organised at a College Mart in her first public address after more than a month.

The rally was organised under the banner of Krisi Jami Raksha Committee (KJRC), a platform of 20 organisations as part of its 'Nandigram Chalo' program.

Blasting the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government for its 'anti-peasant' policy, the TMC supremo also urged the Centre to amend the century-old Land Acquisition Act so that nobody can put the farmers into distress and take advantage of them.

''Get prepared for putting up all kinds of resistance to any land acquisition move,'' she asked the crowd in her usual aggressiveness, while exhorting a large number of women attending the meeting to give leadership to the movement and resist land acquisition with 'whatever you can lay your hands on''.

West Bengal state unit president of Samajvadi party Bijay Upadhyaya, leaders of Naxalite factions constituting KJRC and representatives of Indian Union Muslim Leaque (IUML) were also present at the rally.

Nandigram had witnessed a spate of violence on January seventh, when rival groups clashed over the reported acquisition of land for a proposed SEZ.

Since then, the area has remained inaccesible to outsiders with roads being dug up by hostile villagers to prevent entry of anybody, including the police.

Ascerting that the anti-land acquisition movement would spread over to the entire state, Ms Banerjee said Nandigram would stand as a milestone in the popular resistance against the Left government's 'arbitrary and oppresive' policy.

She handed over Rs one lakh each to the families of three of those killed, Rs 50,000 each to the four persons and Rs 20,000 to another person, who were injured in the violence.

Ms Banerjee, who recently took up a fresh agitational program, after she called off a 25 day hunger strike, announced that she would be visiting Singur tomorrow to hold a rally protesting against today's police 'attrocities and torture' on villagers, who had tried to put up resistance against the process of setting up of Tata motor's small car factory.

UNI