Nandigram, November 14
She is Rashomoyee Das, a 60-year-old widow, of Gokulnagar. She along with her three sons Swadesh, Bidesh and Satyen is a member of the Bhoomi Raksha Committee (BRC). Her sons fled the village two days ago in the face of CPM activists’ attacks and the poor mother does not know anything about their whereabouts.
Rashomoyee has been excused, but not her three sons who are on the CPM’s hit list and the gun totting cadres are searching for them. The poor mother does not know what fate awaits her.
After her husband’s death in June last in an encounter near the Tekhali bridge between the CPM and the TMC activists, Rashomoyee’s hutment was made the “garrison” of the BRC brigade. But the house was burnt down and the CPM hoisted red flags atop the premises and the nearby trees.
Not Rashomoyee alone, but Yosoda Munian at Gorchakroberia, Sonachura’s Aswani Patra, Maleka Bibi of Osmanchak, Abu Mondal at Mohammedpur,
Satangabari’s Abida Khatun, Surjit Maiti of Haripur and about 100 others who are camping in the open, a few of them at the small lawn of the Nandigram police station and facing the ordeals of camp life, also know nothing about their future.
The BRC brigade leader, Abu Taher, who masterminded the entire operation against the CPM musclemen in the past 10 months, is now a “prisoner” in his house in Nandigram.
All other BRC leaders, workers and supporters have now fled Nandigram, which the CPM had “conquered”.
CPM cadres are rejoicing their victory celebration coinciding with the observance of the November revolution, by bursting crackers, beating drums, blowing pipes and horns and
dancing and merrymaking.
Gokulnagar, Satangabari, Sonachura, Mohammedpur, Haripur, Gorchakraberia and several other hamlets in Nandigram, which only a
week’s back were the stronghold of the Trinamool Congress and the Bhoomi Raksha Committee, now have taken a new look - with red flags and festoons hovering everywhere -- in market places, panchyat buildings, block offices, hospital, college and school premises, bus terminus and all other public places - symbolising the CPM’s victory of recapturing their lost lands in Nandigram.
Red flags were planted on every housetop and even at the residents of the BRC leader, Subhendu Adhikery, a TMC MLA, who had been forced to leave Nandigram in the face of the CPM cadres’ attacks from the adjoining Khejuri where all the evicted CPM people were rehabilitated after the March 14 massacre. Bearing guns and red flags, the motorcycle-riding red army is now roaring everywhere in Nandigram, keep crisscrossing every nook and corner of the village.
CPM leaders Ashok Guria, Himangshu Das and several other comrades are
jubilant about their return and now the party’s local committee is officially celebrating the “November Day revolution” in Nandigram with pomp and grandeur. And the fear-struck and panicky “displaced people” are witnessing their victory celebration from a distance with anguish and wonder, while the CRPF and the armed police convey are patrolling the vulnerable areas as precaution against any further political clashes which the poor village people in Nandigram have experienced enough during the past 11 months.
