'Very difficult to restore peace in Nandigram'

KOLKATA: It is very difficult to restore peace in Nandigram despite Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee's best efforts, veteran CPI-M leader Jyoti Basu said on Sunday.

"As I understand, it is really very difficult. But the Chief Minister has stated that he is trying hard," Basu, the former West Bengal chief minister, told newsmen in response to a query if he was hopeful that peace would return to Nandigram soon.

On the role of opposition parties, he said, "Their attitude is not correct. They know that there is a court case and an administrative inquiry is on. They are alleging that there have been incidents of rape, but who are those raped and what are their names?"

Basu, who attended a meeting of the party's labour wing CITU, however, stressed the need to bring peace in the area.

"How is it possible that one part of the state is outside the purview of the state administration?. About 200 of our party supporters have been evicted from their homes," he said.

Hundreds of villagers - mostly owing allegiance to CPI-M - have been evicted from their homes in Nandigram in recurring violence between Marxist supporters and those of the Trinamool Congress-led Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee.

Roads are still dug up and the police is yet to enter Nandigram since violence began on January seven resulting in seven deaths over the proposed land acquisition for setting up a SEZ by Indonesian business house Salim Group, Basu said.

Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee walked out of an all-party peace meeting in Kolkata last Thursday demanding that the March 14 killings in Nandigram be described as 'genocide' in the draft resolution and alleging that the CPI-M was justifying the police firing on that day which led to the deaths of 14 people.

The Forward Bloc state secretary Ashok Ghosh on Saturday said he planned to start a series of  talks with different political parties as a prelude to holding another all-party meeting to defuse the situation in Nandigram.