The hub falls - Human shields, CRPF brake in final assault by cadres

The Telegraph, 12 November Name and number plastered on her forehead, Moni Sau, a resident of Sonachura, breaks down at Tamluk Hospital on Sunday. The 21-year-old was hit by a bullet in the left arm. Picture by Pradip Sanyal Nandigram, Nov. 11: The Red Army recaptured all the Nandigram villages in a final, lightning offensive this evening while the state government pitched in by holding the just-arrived CRPF back at Tamluk. Some 450 cadres crossed the Bhangabera and Tekhali bridges around 4.30-5pm and advanced towards the Opposition “fortress” of Sonachura, firing from behind 600 captive Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee supporters whom they used as human shields. By 5.30, Sonachura had fallen without resistance. “The CPM game plan clicked. Seeing their supporters in front of the advancing cadres, the Pratirodh Committee men refrained from shooting and ran away,” a police officer said. He said the CPM had sensed that Sonachura might put up a stiffer fight than Maheshpur, regained on Wednesday, and had drawn up the human-shield strategy. The cadres already held some 100 Pratirodh Committee supporters hostage in Maheshpur. Yesterday, when Opposition marchers ran helter-skelter under the Red Brigade’s fire, some 500 of them were chased into party stronghold Khejuri and held captive. The local police had already been instructed to stay inside the barracks. District police chief S.S. Panda, too, was stopped at Chandipur as he headed to Nandigram, the officer said. “He had to return to his Tamluk office.” Garchakraberia fell at 6.30 after some token resistance. Kalicharanpur was easily overrun. By 7.30, when the cadres retreated into Maheshpur, Nandigram town was the lone Opposition citadel left standing. The police gave no casualty figures other than saying that a Gokulnagar resident, Dipak Das, 30, was found with bullet injuries near Tekhali bridge and taken to hospital. About 2,000 CPM refugees who had accompanied the attackers — they were sandwiched between the Red Brigade and the hostages — stayed back in their home villages. Some 100 fighters stayed for their protection. Late into the night, these cadres were firing warning shots to discourage any Opposition counterattack as more CPM homeless trooped back. Tomorrow morning, the Central Reserve Police Force will arrive from district headquarters Tamluk, 65km away, to protect the returned refugees. By then, all the Red Brigade men will have left the entire area. Allies RSP, Forward Bloc and the CPI held the CPM “entirely responsible” for the “politics of violence and revenge” in Nandigram but had not a word against the Trinamul Congress-led Pratirodh Committee. The victorious CPM promised safety to Opposition supporters. “Most of those who had fled their homes from either side have returned. I appeal to the rest to come back immediately. They are free to carry out their respective political activities,” state secretariat member Shyamal Chakraborty said. A district official said the CPM worked out its strategy late last night after the Centre agreed to send the CRPF. The paramilitary troops arrived in Howrah this morning but were taken out of the equation by the state government, which decides when and where to deploy them. The cadres began shooting from Khejuri across the Bhangabera bridge, about 2km from Sonachura, since morning and the Opposition returned the fire intermit-tently. Around 4.30pm, some 200 Red Brigade fighters crossed the Tekhali bridge and made towards Sonachura, 6-7km away, behind a thousand CPM refugees and 400 hostages. Just after 5, a second group of 250 cadres — behind another 1,000 refugees and 150-200 hostages — crossed the Bhangabera bridge. It reached Sonachura around 5.45, some 15 minutes after the first team. In Nandigram town, where some 10,000 Opposition supporters are camping, Pratirodh Committee convener Abu Taher said: “So many have been left homeless again today.” Of the five CRPF companies (about 400 personnel) in Tamluk, 16 jawans set off for Nandigram police station tonight to oversee the arrangements but CPM cadres blocked their truck on the way. The jawans chased them away but had to turn back when a group of women CPM supporters formed a chain before the truck a little ahead. CPM supporters ignored pleas to spare the children and kept firing at the Pratirodh Committee procession yesterday, said Sanat Pramanik, now in SSKM Hospital with a bullet wound. “They were firing indiscriminately. Several kids were killed. We pleaded with them to spare the kids but they kept firing,” Sanat recounted from his bed at Cabin 22 of Wood Burn ward. Two men and a woman were brought to SSKM with bullet injuries yesterday. Doctors said their condition was “critical but stable”. Sanat was in front of the rally when the firing started. “First there was intermittent firing and the crowd started dispersing sensing danger. Soon, there was heavy firing.” The man from Karpara saw “three children being hit by bullets and lying still” in front of him. Hit on the left foot, he collapsed. Tapas Khatua of Gangra dived into a pond with a child and dragged himself several hundred feet to save himself after being hit by a bullet on the waist. “The procession started at Sonachura around 9.30am and was moving towards Nandigram,” he said. When it reached Parulbari near Maheshpur High School, around 60 people came out of a house and started firing. “A bullet pierced a man’s abdomen and hit me. The man died on the spot.” Tapas dived into a pond. “A child had grabbed my shirt and I took him along. There were a lot of men and women, diving into the pond.” He climbed out of the pond and started the crawl, across a paddy field, towards a cluster of houses. “I don’t know what happened to the boy,” Tapas said. Bleeding profusely and in seering pain, he pulled himself into a house. “Everybody was in panic. I requested two women to take me to hospital,” he said. While walking with the women as crutches, some of the villagers identified Tapas and took him to hospital. Jhuma Das, 30, a mother of three, was returning to her in-laws from her parents’ house in Kalicharanpur when she was caught in the crossfire. A bullet pierced one foot and hit the other. “I don’t know who took me to hospital,” she said. The ambulance in which Sanat was being taken to hospital was stopped at several places by CPM mobs which had set up roadblocks. On March 14, two tear gas shells had burst very close to Sanat and affected his vision. Actors, artists and writers on Sunday took the Nandigram protests to Nandan, where the Calcutta Film Festival is being held. Nearly 100 protesters, more than 20 of them women, were arrested. Actor Parambrata Chatterjee, actress Bidipta Chakraborty and 37 students, some from Jadavpur University, were among those put behind bars. The actors were released about five hours later, after a meeting at Lalbazar between deputy commissioner (headquarters) Vineet Goyel and a group of protesters, including film-makers Aparna Sen and Goutam Ghose and poet Sankha Ghosh. “I don’t know on what grounds we were arrested. We did not step into Nandan, nor did we have any arms and ammunition. We were sitting outside the Academy of Fine Arts, singing,” said Parambrata after his release. The protesters gathered at Esplanade around 1.15pm and walked towards Nandan. The police stopped them on Kyd Street. After staging a demonstration for half an hour, they returned to Esplanade and formed a “human chain”. “The protesters then walked to the Academy in small groups and sat down on Cathedral Road, disrupting traffic. This was around 2.20pm,” said an officer of South Traffic Guard. The demonstrators spoke against the government’s role in Nandigram and sang songs of protest. Scores of policemen and Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed. The demonstration ended at 4.15pm with the arrest of the protesters. About 40 minutes later, Youth Congress supporters started walking towards Nandan from Elgin Road. They clashed with the police, when they tried to stop the rally. A section of supporters pelted stones, smashing the windscreen of a state bus. Five passengers were injured. In the evening, Trinamul Congress supporters tried to barge into Nandan. A traffic sergeant was injured in the clash that ensued. The scene of the action shifted to Lalbazar after that. The intellectuals tried to enter the police headquarters to secure the release of the arrested protesters but found the gate shut. “There was confusion because we could not allow everyone who had turned up to step inside,” said a senior officer at Lalbazar. Outside the gate, several demonstrators, including poet Joy Goswami, theatre personality Suman Mukhopadhyay and director-singer Anjan Dutt, were lighting candles to protest the Nandigram violence.