Singur erupts again with protests

LOST CAUSE: Protesters hurled crude bombs while trying to destroy fencing work at the Tata's site.

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Rajdeep Sardesai

26/11: Terror comes precariously close

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Kolkata: Tata Group has won the billion-dollar deal over Corus but looks like it will still take some time before the group’s small-car project in Singur takes off.

In a fresh build-up of tension, police teargassed villagers who tried to set fire to wooden posts along the fenced area of Tata Motors small car project at Beraberi in Singur.

Police resorted to lathicharge, used the water cannon and also fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob.

IGP (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said police chased the villagers and lobbed four rounds of tear gas shells before much damage was done to the posts.

President of Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity and a close associate of social activist Medha Patkar, Anuradha Talwar was detained by the police.

Additional police forces have been deployed in the area as tension prevailed, Kanojia added.

Earlier, on three occasions since last month at least three similar abortive attempts were made by the villagers to protest the acquisition of farmland for the project.

Meanwhile Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee visited Nandigram, another hotspot in West Bengal beside Singur, to lead a movement against acquisition of farmland for industry.

Nandigram had witnessed violence with six killed on January 7 over acquisition of land for an SEZ project for the Salim group of Indonesia.

"Our party is organising agitation programmes regularly at Singur. I will also visit Singur on February 10. There is no question of our giving up Singur," the Trinamool Congress supremo said.

The administration had clamped prohibitory orders at Singur on November 30 and did not allow Banerjee to enter the area which had led to the ransacking of the assembly.