Bolstered perhaps by results in the three-tier panchayat elections in Singur, members of the Trinamoool Congress- backed Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee (SKJRC) on Sunday tried to storm the Tata Motors’ small car project area, set fire to two watchtowers, and clashed with the police. The attack coincided with Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee’s visit hours later to commemorate two years of the agitation against land acquisition in Singur. Around 1 pm, a group of 200 supporters of the SKJRC tried to storm the wall of Tata’s project area in Bajemelia. Interestingly, this is the same spot where a convoy carrying Tata Motors officials were stopped and heckled on May 25, 2006, the first instance of agitation in Singur.The villagers scaled the wall and set fire to two makeshift watch towers used by police and security guards. The small contingent of policemen present fled the spot, only to return with a larger contingent. The police tried to teargas the protestors. The villagers countered with bricks, injuring a constable. The clash continued for nearly two hours.Hooghly SP Rajiv Mishra said: “One of our constables has been injured. We were able to thwart the villagers before they could harm the wall. Additional forces have been deployed in the area to thwart further attacks.”A few hours later, addressing a public rally, Banerjee announced that the agitation in Singur would continue. She demanded that the state Government return acquired land to farmers who hadn’t yet received compensation cheques. She also criticised the role of police, saying they used brute force to thwart a farmers’ movement.She announced that her party will hold a mammoth rally in Singur on June 14.Alleging that the CPM has resorted to terror tactics in several places after suffering a setback in the panchayat polls, Mamata Banerjee said: “We will counter the terror with the help of people in a peaceful manner and we will not launch counter terror. We have to ensure the end of CPI-M rule in Bengal in a peaceful way.”In the recently-concluded panchayat elections, Trinamool Congress captured all three Zilla Parishad seats from CPM in Singur. The party also suffered a massive setback in the 45-member Singur panchayat samity with the Trinamul Congress bagging 37 seats. The CPM managed to retain only eight panchayat samiti seats in Singur.
