Maoists sets up arms training camps in Nandigram: CPI(M)

Kolkata (PTI): With the CRPF expected to reach next week Nandigram, the scene of a bitter land war since early January, a senior CPI(M) leader has claimed that Maoists were setting up arms training camps there.

But a leader of the Trinamool Congress, which has been at the centre of the protests against the acquisition of agricultural land to set up an SEZ, maintained that it was a ploy for Marxist cadres to take control there.

"Using the political base of the Trinamool Congress, the Maoists are setting up arms training camps to take control of Nandigram," in West Bengal's East Midnapore district, CPI(M) Central Committee member Shyamal Chakraborty said.

Claiming that the Maoist presence was 'clear' since the beginning of the disturbances there in January, the CPI(M) leader said that they were from Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

"The Maoists have dug up trenches in many places in Nandigram and have been displacing villagers with the sole aim of taking control," he said.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200711041321.htm

To a question, Chakraborty, who is CITU's state president, alleged "the Maoists and Trinamool Congress are dependent on each other at Nandigram."

On the other hand, TC leader and Leader of the Opposition Partha Chatterjee, said "the party-led Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee apprehends that the CPI(M) will try to take control in Nandigram, before the CRPF arrives."

He claimed that the CPI(M) was raising the bogey of Maoists because it was allegedly planning to mobilise 'criminals' to attack Nandigram to wrest control.