Updates on Land Eviction in West Bengal: Singur shuts down city

The Statesman
Kolkata Tuesday 10 October 2006
By: Rajib De

KOLKATA, Oct. 9: Protests against acquisition of land at Singur, punctuated with police excesses, for a Tata Motors project disrupted life in the city today, a 12-hour bandh called by the Trinamul Congress stretching the weekend break from work to a fourth consecutive day.

Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said the car plant would come up all right and Mr. Abdul Rezzaq Mollah, land and land reforms minister , spoke discreetly but discordantly of a lesson having been learnt. The Trinamul Congress and the Congress promised more fireworks for the future and the Communist Party of India-Marxist said people had been too scared to venture out. Mr. Biman Bose was less than voluble when questioned about a 14 December nationwide strike called by Leftist trade unions, through. Attendance was normal in industrial areas and in north Bengal's tea gardens but Kolkata, always responsive to a shutdown call, was inert.

While most people stayed indoors, those obliged to move around improvised their own solutions. Many roads turned into cricket pitches and bikers and amateur drivers had the run of the place. Deserted hawkers' stalls were chosen for impromptu card games and daily labourers slept soundly under trees and the porticos of time-worn and weather-beaten buildings. Most trading units were closed. Mr. Ramprakash Jaiswal of Hazra hired an ambulance to get to Howrah Station; Mr. Ram Prasad Shaw brought his ailing son to SSKM Hospital in a rickshaw. Patients' relatives had stayed on in hospitals, whose employees were allowed pick-ups and homedrops by ambulances.

Tax fares were extortionate and first-time visitors were taken circuitously to straightforward destinations. A distinct drop in the number of afternoon air passengers was reported. The Howrah-bound Rajdhani Express was stranded for more than 20 minutes at Gurap. Local trains, missing the customary rush suburban commuters, were less affected by the bandh than long-distance ones.

Attendance at Writers' Buildings was officially put at 40 per cent by the home secretary, Mr. Prasad Ranjan Ray, though the CPI-M-backed Coordination Committee would have you believe the percentage was 55. Mr. Bose seemed inclined to go by the official figure. Corporate offices too missed most of their employees, though Salt Lake City's information technology sector was relatively unaffected by the bandh. The home secretary said 6, 211 strike supporters had been arrested, including 150 in Kolkata.