Neglected Nandigram still with Didi

The agricultural hamlet at East Midnapore, which shot to national infamy in March 2007 after a police firing left 14 people dead, is green as ever.

Cutting through the one and two-storied brick houses is a new-tarred road, there is electricity and drinking water is not an issue. For the people of Nandigram, they have whatever material comfort one needs but what they want is justice.

Every year, on March 14, a pall of gloom descends on the area, as parents shed tears for their forgotten sons and daughters, wives for their husbands and husbands for their wives, children for their parents and brother for brother. They had all been protesting the proposed chemical hub, as part of a Special Economic Zone in Nandigram, for which they were asked to “sacrifice” their tilling lands, grazing grounds and homes. They paid the price for development with the lives of near and dear ones. Development means not much to them, all they want is justice for those killed by the police on the fateful afternoon.

While several probes have been conducted and a new government took over the reins of power in 2011, nothing much has happened. Bhanu Das’ son Gobinda was among the 14 who fell to police bullets on March 14, 2007. While the final figure is debated and many even within the Left Front have often placed the toll at 50, Bhanu could not care less.

“We often visit martyr’s pedestal erected near our house in memory of Gobindo and the others and cry, we pray for justice. We’re happy that roads have been built, drinking water supply is steady and we also have electricity. What we really need is punishment for those who killed our loved ones,” he said. Sheikh Abdul Dayen, whose son Imdaul also died in police firing, has a hollow look in his eyes, like most of the family members of others who were similarly killed. While on her road to victory and power, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who had taken up Nandigram’s cause against land acquisition, wooed Dayen at many of her public meetings but things changed after 2011 and the 66-year-old man joined the list of those forgotten. Mamata compensated him by way of a monthly allowance and a home guard’s job to his younger son.