The Trinamool Congress chief threatens to go an indefinite hunger strike if state govt failed to remove police within 24 hrs.
KOLKATA: The Trinamool-led group of parties, opposing Tata motors' 1-lakh car project at Singur, have given a 24-hour ultimatum to the West Bengal government to stop acquisition of land in Singur and remove police from the area.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamta Banerjee said if the government failed to do it, she will sit on an indefinite hunger strike. She has appealed the UPA Government to form a Parliamentary Fact Finding Committee to look into the Singur issue.
The SUCI, a left Opposition party, on Sunday called a 24-hour 'Bangla Bandh' on Tuesday to protest police action against farmers protesting the alleged land grab at Singur.
Speaking to reporters, SUCI state secretary Pravash Ghosh said, the bandh was called to protest "the barbaric lathi-charge and police high-handedness" against people who resisted the fencing of the site of the Tata Motors' project in Singur on Saturday.
Mamta Banerjee and social activist Medha Patkar were prevented by police on Sunday from entering Singur to campaign against land acquisition owing to security reasons.
Banerjee, who was heading to Singur in Hoogly district from Islampur in north Bengal, was stopped by police and forced to turn back to Kolkata in the early hours.
She told newsmen at her residence, "I am determined to go to Singur. Police atrocities there are nothing short of goondaism to gag the voice of the Opposition."
Warning the administration of "dire consequences", she said she would decide on her future course of action after a meeting of a 20-party alliance later in the day.
Social activist Medha Patkar, who was detained in Singur on Saturday and taken to a Kolkata guesthouse, refused to alight from the police van. After spending the night in the van, she reached Chandernagore on Sunday morning, when she was stopped again by police near Konnagar.
Huge police contingents were deployed at Beraberia, Bajemeli and Ghaserberi villages, to disperse protestors and control further violence in the area after the fencing began on Saturday.
Prohibitory orders continued to be in force in the area.
SUCI and Youth Congress workers set up road blockades in Birbhum, Murshidabad and Howrah as the Congress observed a "Black Day" to protest Saturday's police action.
About 40 people were injured when police fired rubber bullets and teargas and resorted to lathi-charges to disperse stone-pelting protestors who tried to enter the project site.
Women in the three villages alleged police had entered their homes on Saturday and beat up family members, including children. They said they were compelled to leave their villages because of "police atrocities" against them and their families. DIGP (Midnapore Range) N Rameshbabu said police had entered houses in the three villages from where bombs were thrown. He said SUCI workers and Naxalites, who had come from outside the area, were instigating villagers at Singur to take up cultivation on their lands.
Rameshbabu said since prohibitory orders are in force in the area, anyone entering the fenced site would have to face the consequences.
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