BackTension in Bhangar after 2 killed during land stir
After a day of violent protests, Bhangar on Wednesday remained out of bounds for the police and Trinamool Congress leaders
Premium
Bhangar (West Bengal): Two defectors from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM have plunged the Trinamool Congress (TMC) into a crisis, reminiscent of the 2007 standoff in Nandigram, which started the unravelling of the Left Front’s 34-year rule in West Bengal.
For the first time since Mamata Banerjee took office as the chief minister in 2011, two people were killed on Tuesday in skirmishes over land bought by a state-owned enterprise at Bhangar, a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood in South 24 Parganas district, 40km from Kolkata.
Both were shot and succumbed to injuries in hospitals, but the police denied firing at the mob. Many policemen were beaten up and several vehicles vandalized.
ALSO READ | Violence in Bengal’s South 24 Parganas over acquired land
After a day of violent protests, Bhangar on Wednesday remained out of bounds for the police and Trinamool Congress leaders. In the eye of a storm is a substation being built by Power Grid Corp. of India Ltd on a 13-acre plot bought by the company on its own in 2013.
Villagers said they were forced to sell land for the substation under political pressure, and that their complaints about the potential impact of the project on nearby farmlands fell on deaf ears. Even as Power Grid Corp. continued to build the substation, an agitation against it started to intensify from about a year ago.
When local legislator of the Trinamool Congress Abdur Rezzak Mollah, a former cabinet minister in the Left Front government, tried to visit his constituency on Tuesday, Bhangar was already burning. He and Mukul Roy, one of Banerjee’s top crisis managers, were forced to beat a retreat.
People in Bhangar said their legislator had abandoned them, giving another TMC leader Arabul Islam a free run. It was alleged that Islam, a controversial leader formerly close to the CPM, was grabbing land from local people to aid various projects.
Back in 2009, Islam and Mollah—then the state’s land and land reforms minister—were caught up in a similar controversy over land taken for a now aborted information technology (IT) park and upscale residential complex. In a similar skirmish, a 19-year-old boy was killed after which protesters set fire to the complex.
Singed by the allegations of coercion in land purchase, then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee abandoned the IT park project which was being pursued in partnership with a private developer. Islam had by then already joined the TMC, and was at that time a legislator from Bhangar. Banerjee had in 2009 denied Islam’s involvement.
Even without dismissing the possibility of the police firing in self-defence, locals alleged miscreants owing allegiance to Islam could have been responsible for the killings. Those who fired were in police uniform, said Abdul Kalam, one of the protestors. “It is impossible for us to know whether they were impostors," he said, adding that if they were, they were Islam’s henchmen.
Islam denied the allegation, saying no one close to him left their homes on Tuesday.
The chief minister alleged that outsiders had incited the violence, while asking the police to nab them. Roy, who is also a member of Parliament, said people who had come from outside to stir up the unrest, fired in the melee with the aim of intensifying the standoff.
Mollah blamed a local developer for the hardened resistance to the substation, which was called off last week, according to the state’s power minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.
Students from Kolkata’s Jadavpur University and Presidency University on Wednesday took out protest rallies in the city. Ultra-left elements among students from Jadavpur University are said to have been working in Bhangar for almost a year to foment the movement against the substation, said a key government officer, asking not to be named. Their role is being investigated, he added.
There was no opposition when Power Grid Corp. bought the land, said its chairman and managing director I.S. Jha, adding that the concerns about the substation’s impact on environment are misplaced. Asked about the future of project, he said, trials at the substation could be started immediately if the agitation subsides.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
