Even the police were yet to go to the trouble-torn Basulichak and Dinabhandupur villages although combat force personnel staged a route march at Narby Tekhali village.
A supporter of the Communist Party of India Marxist was killed in an attack by Trinamool Congress activists at Hazrakata in Nandigram on Friday, in a fresh eruption of violence after results of Panchayat elections were declared. East Midnapore District Superintendent of Police S Panda said today that the CPI-M supporter was attacked by TC supporters while he was returning home to Hazrakata from Haldia on Thursday night. He was admitted to the Tamluk Hospital. t
3 women activists of the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Commitee on Tuesday claimed they were beaten up and stripped by the CPM cadres in Nandigram for refusing to support them in the ensuing panchayat polls.
The Governor had visited Nandigram on Sunday to assess the situation after CPI-M's 'recapture' of the area and said that wrong-doers must not be exonerated and the CRPF should continue there for some more time.
Communist Party of India-Marxist and anti-acquisition Bhoomi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee activists on Monday exchanged fire in trouble-torn Nandigram in east Midnapore district amidst reports of a gunshot injury to one person.
The two groups resorted to firing and hurled bombs from Satenganbari village and Takapura in Nandigram and from the adjacent CPI-M stronghold of Khejuri since Friday night, Superintendent of Police G A Srinivas said.
The meeting came in the wake of a successful discussion between Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata.
Nandigram has been witnessing sporadic clashes between supporters of the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee, which is spearheading the agitation against land acquisition for a SEZ there.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on Friday described the flood situation in the twin districts of Midnapore which has claimed 25 lives and affected over 22 lakh people -- as 'very bad'. Of the 22 lakh people affected, 16 lakh were from West Midnapore and the rest from its coastal twin. He said the Army, which had been called in to assist in relief and rescue operations, was working in the worst-affected areas and also air-dropping dry food.
The body of district police intelligence officer Sadhu Chatterjee was found on Saturday from the Haldi riverbed at Narghat, near Nandigram, four days after he was killed in a mob attack.
On Wednesday, a police party, including DIB's Sadhu Chatterjee, went to the area for routine enquiry. But soon they were surrounded by a large mob, which assaulted them.
In an unusually candid admission, the CPI-M blamed corruption and dishonesty among its leaders at the village level for the party's poor show in the recent panchayat elections across the state. "Not everybody in the CPI-M-controlled zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats is honest. We have corruption in our functioning. Even though they are few in number, we have to find out how this happened," CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose said.
The CRPF has given a clean chit to DIG Alok Raj who was accused of rioting and not complying with the West Bengal government's orders during the panchayat elections at Nandigram in East Midnapore district. It said the allegations against DIG Alok Raj were found to be "baseless" in its internal inquiry.
The East Midnapore District Superintendent of Police A K Dutta told PTI that there had been no incident of violence.
Meanwhile, intermittent firing and bomb blasts were reported from CPI(M) strongholds of Tekhalibazar and Bhangabera areas since last evening.
East Midnapore district police Superintendent G Srinivas said the firing and hurling of bombs lasted for about an hour and stopped at around 12 noon.
About 30 CPI-M men at Riapara stopped Gouranga Deb Hazra, PTI's East Midnapore district correspondent, who was riding pillion on a motorcycle, on his way to Chandipur from Nandigram around noon.
Peace could at last return to troubled Nandigram block in East Midnapore district, the scene of protests against a proposed special economic zone, with an all-party peace meeting today calling for an end to violence.
Fifteen persons were killed and over 300 injured in a severe cyclonic storm that lashed West Bengal's south 24 Parganas and east Midnapore districts in the early hours on Wednesday.
"There were CPI-M men carrying red flags who blocked my car and some other vehicles which were going along with mine to Nandigram. I was hit on the face and they tried to pull my hair and were about to drag me out of the car," Patkar told PTI over phone from the spot.
He said a missile firing system would be more effective in repulsing an attack or preventing an economic blockade.
Bharatiya Janata Party's West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said on Sunday that his party would "restore democracy" in the state if voted to power, warning Trinamool Congress cadres to mend their ways or they will have to either visit hospital or crematorium.
Three persons, including husband of a Communist Party of India-Marxist candidate, were killed on Monday and several others injured in violence during the second phase of panchayat elections in West Bengal where 75 per cent polling was recorded.
The severe cyclonic storm, which brought in its wake heavy rain coupled with gale wind till early Sunday, uprooted hundreds of trees and snapped cables in Kolkata and in the coastal districts of North and South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore, bring life to a near-halt.
A huge controversy erupted on Sunday amid the polling for 30 assembly seats in West Bengal, with the Bharatiya Janata Party releasing an audio clip where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is purportedly heard cajoling a BJP leader from Nandigram to rejoin the Trinamool Congress and help her win the seat.
The West Bengal government on Saturday sought support of the Indian Army, railways and port for restoring essential infrastructure and services in the cyclone-ravaged areas of the state. It also urged private entities to provide manpower and equipment for the purpose.
'There will not be very heavy rain.' 'Moderate showers will be there and winds will be, say, somewhere between 20 and 40 km/hr, gusting to 35 km/hr.'
This is the first time in the history of Jharkhand that it is facing such a severe cyclonic storm.
Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari escaped unhurt today when a cloth got stuck in the rotor blades of his helicopter while landing here.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to people to maintain peace and calm and urged the protesters to refrain from taking law into own hands.
While man and a woman were reported killed when trees came crashing down on them in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a 13-year-old girl died in a similar incident in adjoining Howrah. No casualties have been reported from Odisha yet.
The Centre has sought a detailed report from the West Bengal government on the circumstances leading to the violence.
The cyclone, according to an IMD report early Sunday, is developing into a severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal and can potentially become a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours, S N Pradhan, the chief of NDRF said in New Delhi.
Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Sunday admitted to the complicity of his partymen in the killing of nine villagers at Netai in January, 2011 during his tenure as Chief Minister of West Bengal, which had caused a nationwide outcry.
After the video clip of his comments went viral, Giri apologised for making such a remark.
A day after Cyclone Yaas tore through coastal Odisha and Bengal to cause havoc as far as Jharkhand, tornadoes, torrential rains, bridge collapses and swelling rivers continued to plague eastern India as people tried to pick up their lives amid the debris of swept away mud homes and swamped farmlands.
The weatherman said when 'Amphan' makes the landfall between West Bengal's Digha, some 180 km from Kolkata, and Hatiya island in Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening, it will pack sustained wind speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting at 185 kmph. The gale-force wind, blowing at a speed of 240 to 250 kmph and gusting to 275 kmph at one point, had lost intensity and was moving at a speed of 200 to 210 kmph, gusting to 230 kmph on Tuesday evening.
The body of an 8-year-old girl who had gone missing was on Thursday found in a field with locals lynching one man whom they claimed was part of a group which had gang-raped and murdered her, police said.
A blood-soaked Nandigram made Mamata Banerjee what she is today and underpins the hopes of the combustible West Bengal leader of clinching a third straight term in office.
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