Click to play videoKolkata: A day after the proposed special economic zone at Nandigram turned into a bloody battleground in which 11 people died in clashes, the governor of West Bengal Gopal Krishna Gandhi expressed shock over the incident.
Without mincing words, Gandhi spoke about the state government's inability to handle the situation. In a press statement he said that the firing on Wednesday has filled him with a sense of cold horror.
“Force was not used against terrorists or anti-national elements. I trust that the government will ensure that there is a no repetition of the trauma witnessed,” Gandhi said.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress has called a 12-hour bandh on Friday protesting Wednesday’s incident, forcing board examinations in the state to be rescheduled.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has said that the police was completely inept in controlling public anger. The leader is expected to visit the troubled zone on Thursday.
However, her attempt is likely to be foiled as the entire area in the east Midnapore district has been taken over by police personnel.
The police, on Wednesday, had moved in to take charge of the area as the villagers had cut off Nandigram from the rest of the state for about two months.
The villagers have been protesting the state government's move to acquire land for an Indonesian firm, which plans to set up a chemical hub in the area.
A VIOLENT PAST | |
 | Most of the Special Economic Zones, including the one that was to be set up in Nandigram, are to be built on farmland. The violence in recent months has sparked a national debate over whether farms should be razed for factories. |
| All those killed on Wednesday were farmers, bringing the death toll in Nandigram since violence first erupted there to 18, a senior government official, Amit Kiran Deb told AP. |
| The trouble in Nandigram first erupted on January 7 after the leak of government plans to acquire 9,000 hectares of land in the area and build a petrochemical plant and shipyard in a Special Economic Zone. |
| The hastily formed Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh or Land Acquisition Resistance Committee, organized protests, which soon degenerated into violent clashes. |
| After a few days of violence, in which six people were killed, West Bengal government said it would reconsider its plans, and the Centre soon followed suit, temporarily suspending the approval of new Special Economic Zones. |
| Police in West Bengal, meanwhile, effectively abandoned Nandigram to the farmers, who turned their villages into bristling little garrisons, digging trenches across roads and erecting barricades to keep officers out. |
| But the area has since been plagued by sporadic clashes between members of the resistance committee and supporters of the CPI-M. |
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