20 injured in clashes in Singur

Singur, May 20(UNI) About 20 people, including two policemen, were injured when violent agitators, resisting the Tata Motors project, clashed with the law keepers during a law violation programme today.

Police fired tear gas shells and lathicharged the mob that indulged in heavy brick batting 100 km off the walled project site that is at the centre of a political controversy ever since land acquisition started last year for the proposed small car factory.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (Bardhaman Range) Anuj Sharma said Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Chandannagore, Kalyan Mukherjee and another policeman were seriously injured in the mob attack. They had been admitted to a hospital.

A number of people, including few leaders of the Trinamool Congress-led Krishi Jami Raksha Committee, had been arrested in connection with the incident, he said.

A heavy reinforcement of police had been rushed to the area and the situation was now stated to be under control.

Barely four days ahead of the proposed all-party peace talks on Nandigram, today's incident took place breaking a three-month-lull in Singur. The area continued to be on boil since November last year with a Trinamool Congress-Naxals combine fiercely opposing the acquisition of agricultural land.

The incident occurred when about 300 Jami Raksha Committee members, led by local Trinamool Congress MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharjee, Naxalite leader Pradip Banerjee and NPMO activist Anuradha Talwar marched in a procession to 'recapture' the acquired land as part of their programme.

A heavy posse of police put up a barricade 100 metres ahead of the project site to block the way of the agitators who immediately started putting bricks, stones and other missiles. Some of the processionists, their faces covered with clothes, were also carrying iron rods and sharp weapons, the DIG said.

Though police maintained an initial restraint in the face of heavy attack, they were forced to lathicharge and then lob teargas canisters to bring the situation under control. ''The first cordon of policemen that resisted the agitators from going inside the project site were even without batons. We had instructions to maintain restraint as far as possible,'' Superintendent of Police Supratim Sarkar said.

Though agreeing on taking part in a peace move for Nandigram, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee had made it clear that the Krishi Jami Raksha Committee would continue its movement in Singur 'until and unless' the Government returned the farmers the land that had been ''forcibly taken away''.

UNI