Nandigram Violence - The Events of 14 March 2007

The Events of 14 March 2007

The administration was directed to break the BUPC's resistance at Nandigram and a massive operation with at least 3,000 policemen was launched on 14 March 2007. However, prior information of the impending action had leaked out to the BUPC who amassed a crowd of roughly 2,000 villagers at the entry points into Nandigram with women and children forming the front ranks. In the police firing, at least 14 people were killed".

Immediately following the 14 March killings, voluntary teams of doctors visited the Nandigram health centre, the district hospital at Tamluk and later, the SSKM hospital and compiled a comprehensive report

Few journalists were able to access the area, with their access being restricted by 'checkposts' manned by CPI(M) cadres; two belonging to a news channel were briefly abducted.

The scale of the action left the state stunned. All India Trinamool Congress estimates put the toll at 50. The PWD Minister of the Government of West Bengal, Mr. Kshiti Goswami of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (India) (RSP), a Left Front constituent, said 50 bodies were taken to hospital, but it was impossible to ascertain how many were actually dead. In response to this, people singled out as CPI(M) members and supporters and their families were driven out of the area by the locals and their houses burnt. A week after the 14 March clashes, The Hindu estimated that around 3500 persons had been displaced into relief camps as a result of threats from BUPC. Accusations by Trinamool Congress that hundreds of people have been killed in the event were not confirmed by facts. Two of the supposed victims, as claimed by Trinamool Congress, were later found in a completely safe place elsewhere in West Bengal.

The CPI(M) has accused the Jami Raksha Committee – a coalition of activists from various parties who oppose land acquisition – of armed attacks on relief camps which led to three deaths as well as a series of murders and a gangrape.

Fresh violence erupted in Nandigram on 29 April caused the West Bengal Human Rights Commission to step in. A team of intellectuals and theatre personalities from Calcutta was attacked by CPM cadre on their return trip after disbursing relief material collected from the people in various parts of the state. Those activists later publicly supported opposition party Trinamool Congress in 2009 Parliament Election.

The deaths in Nandigram have led to a great deal of controversy on the left in India. The federal police say they have recovered many bullets of a type not used by police but in widespread use in the underworld.