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'Nandigram farmers need security', CRPF to stay on
Published on Mon, Nov 19, 2007 at 19:34, Updated at Tue, Nov 20, 2007 in Nation section
Tags: West Bengal, Nandigram , New Delhi
ARMS CONTROL: West Bengal police give in to Centre demands, allows CRPF to say on in Nandigram.
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New Delhi: In Nandigram, West Bengal police seem to have given in to Central forces, allowing CRPF camps to remain in the troubled area.
In fact, they deny they ever tried to shift the CRPF away from violence hit areas.
The move comes just a day after the DGP asked CRPF to re-deploy from areas that faced the brunt of the armed assault by CPI-M militia.
The order had come even as the CRPF was collecting intelligence on the armed militia that had perpetrated the violence.
The CRPF was also preparing to go into fresh operations to flush out arms and ammunition from Nandigram.
CRPF officials believe their efficacy will be tested when anti land acquisition refugees move out of camps to their homes. But clearly, the West Bengal police does not want CRPF camps in villages which supported the anti land acquisition movement backed by the Trinamool Congress.
“This is the harvest season and so the people would want to go back to their fields as they are unattended. We feel we must provide security to them. The primary mandate is to bring peace to the area. We have also set up public control rooms for getting information from the public and we act according to the reports we get,” says DIG, Alok Raj.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee
today charged the Centre with maintaining a ''studied silence'' on
Nandigram and questioned the justification behind the shifting of
the CRPF from the violence-torn villages.
Addressing a rally in Kolkata, Banerjee said, '' If the Centre thinks so, it could dismiss the CPI(M)-led Left Front Government, specially after the Calcutta High Court verdict, indicting the state
government for March 14 police firing in Nandigram, and Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi's terming the happening as unlawful and unacceptable. ''
Banerjee stated that the CRPF was requisitioned for the embattled Nandigram, but the forces were allowed to the strife-torn area only after 48 hours, and it smelt a ''rat'' behind the shifting of the CRPF.
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