Police enter strife-torn Nandigram; villagers protest

Kolkata, Mar 14 (UNI) Police burst teargas shells as armed villagers resisted a huge force from entering the embattled Nandigram area in East Midnapore district this morning.

''The police are entering the area but they are facing resistence,'' Inspector General of Police (Law&Order) Raj Kanojia told UNI.

According to local reports, the villagers hurled bombs on the police, that numbered in about 2000, entering Nandigram from three directions to take control of the area.

The police, however, retaliated by lobbing teargas canisters to disperse the mob, including women, that had put up barricades in several parts of the area.

The move came following a decision by the state government to take control of the area, which lay isolated from the west of the state, with members of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh committee, a Trinamool-led platform of Opposition forces, digging up roads and destroying bridges to prevent entry of outsiders.

Official sources said about 5,000 police, including the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and the Combat Force personnel, had been mobilised on the fringes of Nandigram over the past two days to initiate the operation.

After the protests broke out in Nandigram in early January over the government's reported move to acquire land for the proposed chemical hub, the police had been kept only on the fringes of the strife-torn area in accordance with the administrative decision to allow time for the tension to die down.

UNI