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Advani equates Nandigram incident to Jallianwallah Bagh

Last updated on: March 17, 2007 16:24 IST
Equating the police firing in Nandigram to the 1919 Jallianwalah Bagh massacre, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Saturday said the method adopted by West Bengal in acquiring land for industries is not right.

He said industries could not be set up on the bodies of peasants. "I am aware of the brutalities committed by the British, now I find CPI-M is behaving as brutally as the British," Advani, who along with eight other National Democratic Alliance leaders visited Sonachura where the police firing took place, told reporters.

"In Sonachura village the police is asked to hit the people on chest and abdomen like Jallianwalla Bagh. History will never forget the incident and forgive those who committed the brutality," the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said.

Advani said, "People are talking about industrialisation. NDA is also not opposed to industrialisation. Lots of industries were set in Gujarat from where I have been elected to Lok Sabha, but the land is not acquired forcibly by the state government there. "Industrialists had to pay the market price to buy land in Gujarat. The state government had not interfered with it. But the method adopted in West Bengal is wrong," he said.

Advani said, "Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is now isolated not only from the Left Front partners, but even the person, who is his inspiration, Jyoti Basu has also turned against him."

He said throughout India the "name of Sonachura and Nandigram will be uttered whenever people will talk about brutalities committed by a state government."

Assuring the villagers about NDA's support to their cause, Advani said that BJP and Trinamool Congress were fighting for them.

"Mamata Banerjee has risked her life for you," he told while talking to the villagers. He said that one villager narrated his experience saying that his brother was shot at and taken away by the police.

"The person could have been saved if treatment was given to him in time," he said. The villagers narrated their experience to the NDA delegation about the "CPI-M atrocities".

Lots of women also narrated their plight to the NDA leaders, he said. The anger of the people was manifested when some policemen were seen nearby. They immediately raised slogan, "Police go back. Hang Buddhadeb."

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