That Night in Nandigram

Soumitra Basu, Editor, Anyaswar
Published in : www.guruchandali.com (in Bengali)

It is a story of that horrific night. The night of 14^th of March, 2007. After the completion of "Operation Nandigram" in broad day light, CPM called a local 12 hour strike (bandh) in Nandigram. A bandh was called in the evening hours in such a remote place where people mostly keep themselves indoor after sunset. Why was that called then?

After the first bout of police action in the daylight when the news came that around 60 were killed, the second phase and the most horrendous phase was waiting to happen.

Meanwhile, the number of casualties as stated by media gave rise to enough confusion. Dainik Statesman (the Bengali Statesman) put the number to 31. The TV channels [private] displayed 18. TARATV correspondent Gourango, who was apprehended by the police and was handed over to CPM goons and then (on live TV) was thrashed and foul-mouthed by CPM, puts it off the record as 100+ and on the record as "could not count". TARATV correspondent Subrata put the number as "uncounted" as he explained no one could say and knew the exact figure. The state government spokesperson (Mr Vora) went back to the number 6 and then said that is what he was informed and he would inform the press some time later!

Subrata and Gourango of TARATV were in the field. This is the horrendous facts that they had to say. They put self-imposed censorship on themselves as - "I have stopped telling the media what I saw and ought to have told them; there is no chance people and our viewers would believe. Their is a limit to human belief. They will take me as a mad babbler! I myself am not convinced of what I saw, heard and went through. It was like a nightmare and I wish all that I saw and heard was simply a delirium."

As a matter of fact, they vomited several times in the hotel they stayed, not because of the threats by the CPM goons but because what they saw and heard and the language of threats by the CPM goons who besieged them in CPM party office in Nandigram.

"Bands of CPM goons aided by platoons of Eastern Frontier Rifles and Commando forces were entering every village and paras [mahallas]. They brought the men out of home, they took no prisoners, no witnesses, they shot them, bayoneted them, ripped apart their stomachs and then laid them down the canal to the sea and confluence. They then brought out the young girls, gathered them in open space, raped them multiple times till the girls collapsed, they then tore their limbs, in some cases cut them to pieces and let them down the Haldi river and/or Talpati canal. They made sure that there were no witnesses. And even if there were some, they know that the young girls in traditional Medinipur would never come out to say what really happened and who will believe. Nobody will corroborate and those who will speak out will be killed and tortured again. CPM and police then wrapped the entire village with their red banners showing that the area was secured and their writ will run. Those who fled the villages were mostly apprehended on the outskirts or on the boundaries and no one knows what happened to those poor souls. We could hear these facts only from those who could crawl the whole way out through fields and forests. Even that is difficult now as the fields are all dried up and the crops have already been reaped. Anyone running is easily visible.

Even though innumerable, official count of rape could be obtained as six, because these are the ones who survived to tell their tales and they are around middle aged women who somehow were spared from being butchered and minced to pieces. The process followed in villages after villages and to our utter astonishment the process continued till next morning. All the correspondents were removed. Sukumar Mitra, a journalist from Dainik Statesman ran his way out amidst flurries of bullets. He was specifically hunted and somehow could manage to sneak out. The ferocity of this attack was so grizzly that the residents of that area was simply not believing anyone to open their gab. Fear is made a weapon for a social-censorship.

Haripur is a nearby subdivision. This area is earmarked for nuclear power plant. People of that region has also come up in protest. Most of them are fishermen. They have stopped going to the confluence and the sea. They feel that human bodies are everywhere in the confluence and the worst is that the crocodiles,gharials and sharks are now rushing towards that spot from far away Sunderbans. These animals rush for fresh blood. The fishes will be eaten away by these reptiles and there is a high possibility of these getting netted instead of fishes. The Haripur will be out of livelihood for at least a week or so, and this was premeditated by the CPM administration to teach Haripur a lesson. Haripur is the place which shooed out even Central teams and even bigger police forces. This was a lesson to teach both Nandigram and Haripur together. No sign of any dead bodies would ever be found, no proof of rape will be there. The real number of casualties can only be revealed at least three months after, and that too if peace comes into stay, and if the residents could come back and then count the missing. But after CPM has "secured" and "liberated" those areas, the evicted will not be allowed to come back and these properties will be given to the CPM goons from Keshpur and Garbeta and neighbouring places. The permanency of mopping up strategy is how CPM will ensure that Nandigram and Haripur will be secured for electoral battles in the future."

This is more horrendous than partition story. The journalists all are aware of this but they cannot come out with these stories. CPM will ensure that these journalists are hunted down and wiped out of existence. They have already started to threaten all journalists and intellectuals who have gone against them.

Let us not draw parallels from the history! I do not know who will believe how much, but I have mentioned the sources and you all are welcome to verify them through the references I have provided.