The Central Reserve Police Force on Tuesday began a clean-up operation in strife-torn Nandigram recovering a decomposed body, landmines and weapons as West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee defended CPM’s recapture of the area saying the opposition was “paid back in its own coin”. Fear-struck villagers, desolate houses and a disconsolate relatives of the victims of violence told their own tales when an NDA delegation led by senior BJP leader L K Advani toured parts of Nandigram after which he said he has “never seen this kind of terror in his political career”.
Police could not identify the body and CRPF DIG Alok Raj said in Nandigram that two pistols, rifles and landmines were recovered from Sonachura and Jelingham, which had been held by Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee supported by Trinamool. Raj, however, said, “We have no knowledge who left them there”.
“Our supporters, after remaining away from their homes for 11 months, were desperate to return. They risked their lives and returned home,” Bhattacharjee told a press conference in Kolkata.
Asked whether the peace of the crematorium has returned to Nandigram, Bhattacharjee shot back, “Then, was all that happened in the last 11 months a sign of heavenly peace?”
He accused the Centre of delaying despatch of CRPF saying, “Had they arrived in time, the violence could have been avoided.’’
Maoists’ presence
Meanwhile, differences have started surfacing on factors that spurred the battle in the top corridors of power on Tuesday Chief Minister Bhattacherjee and state Home secretary P R Roy making diametrically opposite statements with regard to presence of Maoists in Nandigram.
‘No proof’
“There has so far not been any specific proof or evidence with me to suggest presence of the Maoist elements in Nandigram,” Roy told media persons at the Writers’ Buildings (state secretariat) here. But later in the day, Bhattacharjee who met newspersons for the first time after the Nanidgram carnage, not only contradicted him, but sought to assert that the Maoists were very much present there and there was adequate proof of it.
The Maoists were present in Nandigram; they came in from Jharkhand and imparted training to some anti-farmland agitationists,” Bhattacherjee asserted when the reporters pointed out the version of the home secretary. Surprisingly, the question doing the rounds in the corridors of power here is how the Maoists could escape when armed CPM cadres surrounded  and blocked all entry and exit points during more than a week siege of Nandigram, preventing entry of both the police and mediamen.

INQUIRY

Kolkata, pti: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Tuesday rang up West Bengal Chief Minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to inquire about the latest situation in Nandigram.
The chief minister apprised the prime minister in detail about the latest developments at Nandigram, party sources said.
The prime minister’s phone call came when Buddhadeb was going to Raj Bhavan to meet the Governor, Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi after holding a press conference at the state secretariat.