The tension in the aftermath of Saturday night’s violent clashes subsided somewhat on Tuesday after several rounds of dialogue between members of the Save Land Committee and the district administration.Following the discussions, the agitating villagers agreed to not resist restoration and repair work from Wednesday.On Tuesday, the police also doubled their level of deployment at several areas, though they are yet to enter villages that have been out of bounds for them for the past six days.The ground situation today brightened chances of repair work on damaged roads, culverts and bridges to start from tomorrow. Earlier locals, resisting the proposed SEZ in the area, had cut off 20 villages in Nandigram and did not want any police or civil administration official to enter the area. Bands of armed villagers have been standing guard for the past six days, preventing entry of any “outsider”.The agitating villagers, however, have imposed certain conditions, the most important being that the administration would not allow any political party’s camp to be set up within a five-kilometre radius of Nandigram. They also want the government to abstain from acquiring land for the proposed SEZ project without discussion with the villagers.Significantly, the Save Land Committee’s demand to dismantle political party camps within a 5-km radius is in effect a sign to the administration to remove the half-a-dozen CPI(M) camps that have come up in the area ever since the violent flare-up. The committee pointed out that the camps were actually sheltering CPI(M) cadres to mount an attack on Nandigram to demolish the locals’ resistance.The CPI(M) leadership has agreed to remove the camps but wants the administration to take care of people at the camp — not less than 1,000 who have allegedly been ousted from their homes after the January 3 violence.Meanwhile, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi and senior Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee addressed a massive rally in Nandigram on Tuesday afternoon. Mukherjee exhorted the people of Nandigram to sustain their vigorous movement till the state government halts its land acquisition move. Das Munshi, however, underlined the need for setting up industries in the state, but he criticised the state government for ignoring the issue for the past 30 years. The Union minister also asked the state government to come out with a white paper, outlining the government’s plans for industrialisation and its blueprint for rehabilitation of the affected and displaced persons.
