Hundreds Of People Homeless In Post-Poll Violence In Indian State

West Bengal, India (AHN) - The ruling party of this state, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has decided to back off a plan to acquire a large tract of land for development of an industrial hub after incurring grave losses in village council elections earlier this month.

The decision concluded a two-day meeting of the party which began amid outbreaks of violence throughout West Bengal.

On Friday, just a few days after the poll results were announced, a CPI-M supporter was killed in the Nandigram region, leading to a renewal of violence.

CPI-M leadership indicated they believed that months of political tension and conflict in Nandigram contributed largely to the electoral losses.

Nandigram is a cluster of 30-odd villages in this eastern Indian state. Trouble started when the government wanted to acquire 20,000 acres of land for construction of a chemical hub. Residents of the Nandigram region fought an extended bloody war with the ruling party.

The protests came to a head when the ruling party unleashed a reign of terror on the region in March 2007. Many people were killed and thousands were rendered homeless.

Nandigram, which voted out the Marxists in the Panchayat elections, is now reliving the wrath of the ruling party, with the firings of opposition supporters. Some people have even been driven out of their homes.

On Friday, 150 people arrived at the Nandigram relief camp. Some of them had been severely beaten and tortured.

A 60-year-old man, his body covered with bruises, lay groaning in the hospital. He told AHN, "they beat me up mercilessly saying that I voted against them. I somehow managed to run away."

Another woman was sitting by her 22-year old-son, who was lying motionless on a hospital bed. "They made him run and run and then they pushed him to the ground and beat him with sticks and gun points, saying that he supported the opposition party. The central police force intervened and brought him to the hospital otherwise they would have killed him," the mother said.

A protest group formed by the villagers said that they fear the coming days. Bhabani Das, general secretary of the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee, said, "There are a lot of arms in the region and we fear that the CPI-M supporters might use them against us."

Officials with CPI-M allege, however, that it is their supporters who are being targeted by the opposition.