Clashes btwn Police and protestors in Nandigram

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

''Police are entering the area but they are facing resistence,'' Inpector General of Police (Law&Order) Raj Kanojia told sources today.

According to local reports, the villagers hurled bombs on two thousand strong police entering Nandigram from three directions to take control of the area after about two months.

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

The police move followed a decision of 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 Rapid Action Force(RAF) and Combat Force personnel, had been mobilised on the fringe of Nandigram over the past two days to initiate the operation.

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

UNI