Govt plans 20 new bus terminuses in city

KOLKATA: The state transport department has prepared a preliminary report for relocation of bus terminuses in different parts of the city. While four major and 16 smaller terminuses have been planned, a bus bay, where buses will halt for a few minutes and leave for their respective destinations, is also on the cards, the report states. There are also plans to re-lay the Babughat terminus.

The state transport department prepared a preliminary report on relocating bus terminuses in different parts of the city. So far, four major terminuses and 16 smaller ones have been planned across the city. In the heart of the city, there will be a long bus bay where buses will come, halt for a few minutes and leave for their respective destinations. The Babughat terminus would be re-laid for better passengers’ convenience.

Even though there will be some initial inconvenience, transportation engineers say shifting the Esplanade terminus will decongest the heart of the city to a great extent.

Since traffic volume on most roads in and around Esplanade far exceeds the saturation point, shifting of the bus terminus will decongest the heart of the city. “Shifting the terminus would ease the traffic knot at Esplanade and Dalhousie to a great extent,” said a senior traffic police officer.

The Esplanade bus terminus can accommodate more than 1,500 buses at any given time of the day. Preparation for shift of the terminus is in full swing after the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta high court order. The order affirmed that collective fumes from buses parked in the Esplanade terminus was blackening the city’s historic white edifice, the Victoria Memorial and hence needed to be shifted.

The Esplanade bus terminus, which can accommodate more than 1,500 buses at any given time of the day has to be shifted elsewhere after the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court order in favour of shifting this terminus. The court, in its order, affirmed that the collective fume from buses parked in the Esplanade terminus is blackening the city’s white edifice, Victoria Memorial.

However, it is not easy to find an alternate space for the terminus. Esplanade is situated at the heart of the city and, thus, is a convenient location for passengers to access.

“Wherever we shift the terminus, it would never match the degree of convenience that Esplanade terminus provides.

So, we have to have good connectivity with the city centre and the terminus so that people don’t find it difficult to board buses,” said a senior transport department officer.

Besides relocating the Esplanade bus terminus, the department plans to set up four major terminuses across the city. According to the report, these terminuses will come up at – Bantala, below the approach way of the Howrah end of the second Hooghly Bridge, near Belghoria Expressway and Behala.

Efforts will also be made to expand the existing bus terminuses in Jadavpur, Kasba, East Jadavpur, Haltu, New Alipore, Haridevpur, Budge Budge, Khiderpore and Metiabruz, in the south and Shyambazar-Bagbazar, Pikepara, Ultadanga, Chitpore, Burrabazar-Posta, Phoolbagan, Salt Lake, Maniktala, Rajarhat and airport in the north. The augmentation will aim at accommodation of a larger number of buses.

The buses will be routed through the heart of the city so that passengers at Esplanade find it easy to reach their destinations. Bus bays at important junctions of the city will also aid passengers to board or get off a bus.

never find difficulty to reach their respective destinations. Instead of a terminus at Esplanade, the transport department has planned to create some bus bays where buses plying through Esplanade can halt here for sometime for passenger embarkation and disembarkation.

In October 2002, environment activist Subhas Dutta had filed a PIL in Calcutta high court regarding pollution affecting the Victoria Memorial. Following the litigation, the high court had appointed an expert committee to suggest measures to save the monument from environmental hazards.

The panel, comprising officials from the central and state pollution control boards and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), suggested several steps, including a ban on parking vehicles on roads adjoining Victoria Memorial.

Following the report, the high court green bench on September 28, 2007, marked a red zone around the monument, encompassing AJC Bose Road to the south, Hospital Road to the west, Queen’s Way to the north and Cathedral Road to the east.

It also directed the state government to shift the bus terminus to a distant place within six months and restrict parking and movement of vehicles around the monument.

CMO official stalls IAS promotions

KOLKATA: Routine promotion of three senior IAS officials was stalled by a top CMO official who had an axe to grind against one of the three. Finally, chief secretary Samar Ghosh had to intervene and push the file to chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s table for her approval.

Social welfare department secretary Tuk Tuk Kumar had apparently invited the wrath over a somewhat innocuous note she had written on a file relating to the Integrated Child Development Scheme. Apparently, the person at the chief minister’s office (CMO) failed to fathom the note and asked for an explanation. Kumar reportedly told him that the note was quite legible and made absolute sense. The officer didn’t agree and asked her to change it.

Matters turned complex when Kumar stuck to her ground and reportedly said she saw no reason why the note needed to be amended. Finally, the officer at the CMO demanded that the note be withdrawn completely.

In the meantime, about a fortnight ago, the file for promoting Kumar, a 1981 batch officer, and two others in the same batch, Nihar Banerjee and A K Agarwal, went to the same officer so that it could be presented to the chief minister. All three were supposed to be promoted to the rank of the additional chief secretary, the highest in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).

The promotions were already cleared by the departmental promotional committee (DPC), which is headed by the chief secretary. There are two other members – senior-most officer Anup Chanda and union health secretary P K Pradhan. The rule is that an officer from the state cadre who is in the rank of secretary in Delhi should be a member of the DPC. The file concerning the promotions had been instantly cleared by the DPC and duly signed by Pradhan from Delhi. But it got stuck at the CMO for some strange reason.

While Kumar knew what had gone wrong, the other two were clueless about the delay. Nihar Banerjee’s promotion was already due for being the senior-most of the three. Kumar and Agarwal made it to the category after the recent cadre revision in which Bengal (on the chief minister’s persistent demand) had been allotted 45 more IAS officers.

Officials at Writers’ Buildings clarified that the promotion to the rank of additional chief secretary usually takes 24 hours after the file concerned has been moved. But these three officials were left guessing as to why their promotion was being delayed. Apparently, Kumar was told her promotion would not happen unless she withdrew her notes. She refused once again, causing an impasse of sorts.

“Since the other two IAS officers’ promotions were tagged with Kumar’s, they too had to suffer the delay,” said a source in the government, adding that such an instance was unprecedented in government circles, because a promotion to the rank of additional chief secretary is a routine affair.

Finally, the matter was brought to the notice of chief secretary Samar Ghosh, who had the file sent to the chief minister’s table. Mamata Banerjee signed the order to promote Banerjee, Kumar and Agarwal as additional chief secretaries was passed on March 13. With these three, Bengal now has seven additional chief secretaries.

Gaudy makeover for Raj-era bridge

KOLKATA: A politician in the state seems to have taken chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s diktat to beautify the city so seriously that he’s going out of his way to turn the simple stateliness of a Raj-era bridge into a gaudy modern-day artwork. In a bid to draw Mamata’s attention, lakhs have already been spent on the incongruous makeover of the bridge that connects Beliaghata Road with Beliaghata Main Road.

Not only has the politician – Manicktala MLA Paresh Pal – gone overboard on aesthetics, he has even consigned norms to the bin by arbitrarily awarding the project to a private contractor. If Pal has his way, a similar cosmetic makeover is waiting for bridges at Narkeldanga Main Road and Manicktala Main Road.

It was Mamata’s command to party MPs, MLAs and councillors to beautify Kolkata that spurred Pal into action. The Beliaghata canal from Baghbazar in north Kolkata to the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in the east cuts across his constituency. With polluted water stagnating in the clogged canal and waste littered all over, the stench and squalor is overpowering.

Yet, the MLA somehow “overlooked” the filth below and concentrated on the staid structure of the bridge over it. “The canal has to be dredged and people living along it rehabilitated for cleaning up the entire stretch. That involves huge cost and is beyond my scope. The bridges are used by lakhs of people and sprucing them up would make an immediate impact,” Pal reasoned.

At first, he thought about a fresh coat of paint to the three identical bridges. But with councillors, MLAs and MPs vying for Mamata’s attention with all kinds of beautification projects, Pal realized a simple paint job would go unnoticed. That’s when he decided on doing something more radical to grab the eyeballs.

Consequently, Pal roped in Joy Sengupta, an artist he had earlier engaged to beautify Kankurgachi Park. The brief was simple: make something so striking that the bridge stands out. Joy used the motif – brick and mortar seats in the shape of wooden logs – that he had worked on in the park five years ago. His idea was to transform the concrete bridge into a log bridge, complete with giant mushrooms sprouting over the edge. Sengupta proposed the idea and the maverick politician lapped it up without even consulting city planners, architects, conservationists or other artists on the appropriateness or incongruity of the fancy art work on a public bridge of British vintage.

“I want the bridge to stand out and look somewhat like the park. In the squalor, it will be an oasis of sorts,” said Pal, adding that conical shelters were being built on the bridge to house statues of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and Acharya Prafulla Chandra.

There was a hitch though. Executing the beautification work would require more funds than a simple paint job. But getting funds approved through the proper channel would be a challenge and could stall the project. That’s when he decided to get only the kerb-side wrought iron railings approved under the MLA Local Area Development Fund. He would himself arrange for funds for the actual makeover. While the former would cost Rs 5 lakh, that latter needed Rs 15-20 lakh.

Pal conceded that he did bypass the norms by not roping in the civic body. Senior civic officials expressed surprise over Pal’s initiative to get the beautification work done by a private contractor without the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s supervision. But the MLA is unfazed. “I don’t trust government agencies as involving them would have led to delays and cost escalation,” Pal argued.

Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage Kolkata chapter convenor GM Kapur said he was amazed at the lack of sensitivity. “Who is in authority? Everyone, even KMC, appears to be totally toothless. Arbitrary decisions on matters in public sphere are being taken all too often. Beautification is one thing, changing the character of the city quite another. Why should anyone’s personal taste and preference be fostered on the entire city? Why doesn’t the government and the KMC set up a committee comprising architects and artists to suggest ways to meaningfully carry out a beautification drive?” Kapur wondered.

Mayor Sovon Chatterjee said he wasn’t aware of the project, and hence, couldn’t comment. “I will look into it,” he said.

State likely to withdraw land stir cases

KOLKATA: The state government has set in motion a process to withdraw criminal cases lodged during the Singur and Nandigram land acquisition movements. Though the chief minister on Tuesday announced the government’s intention in this regard, tough task lays ahead for her government as it has to reach to a political consensus at the ground level to withdraw around 1,000 such cases.

According to senior criminal lawyer Sekhar Basu, the government can appeal before the court (before trial concludes) to withdraw any case if it’s willing to do so. “The public prosecutors can appeal, but it’s ultimately the court’s discretion whether or not it will allow such appeal,” he said. Criminal lawyer Tamal Mukherjee said once a complaint is made into an FIR, the complainant is a witness in a “state” case. “Section 321 CrPC allows for such withdrawal by the public prosecutor,” he opined.

However, Basu stressed that even if a case is withdrawn, the complainant can always appeal against it. “It is they who’d set the legal machinery in motion,” he said. This is where the problem lies. “Even if the government withdraws the cases, will the complainants agree?” wondered East Midnapore CPM leader Nishikanta Shee. The situation, therefore, demands a political consensus at the ground level.

Hooghly CPM’s district secretary Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury said he isn’t against the government move if it encompasses all (read both Trinamool and CPM workers). Among nearly 1,000 cases the government is set to withdraw, 325 had been lodged with Nandigram police station, 300 with Khejuri and nearly 89 with Singur police station. Though it is only a fraction of total such cases, its extent can be gauged by the fact that Trinamool MLA Becharam Manna now has to appear before the court in 64 non-bailable cases. Even minister Moloy Ghatak is indicted in nine cases. For CPM, the situation is no different either. According to Shee, there are 700 cases lodged against CPM workers – some non-bailable ones, including murder. “I hope the government doesn’t make any distinction between Trinamool and CPM in this,” Shee said.

Trinamool’s Tamluk MP Subhendu Adhikari, largely responsible for scripting the land stir in Nandigram, however, has a different take. “People had been part of the resistance in Singur and Nandigram and wrongly indicted should be treated separately from the oppressors or those who attacked. The victims should get justice, not the attackers,” he said.

Abu Sufian, one of Trinamool’s faces during the Nandigram stir, said, “With Didi as the chief minister, we knew such cases will be dealt with. We’d compiled a list of bailable cases and sent it to the government for its consideration. I am not aware how the government intends to go about it, but many cases are in a trial stage and have been chargesheeted.”Haripal MLA Becharam Manna said most of these cases were politically motivated cases. “It was vindicated when people elected us to power,” he said.

Four-year-old Payel’s overnight ordeal in police station has been one of Mamata’s common refrain whenever she had spoken of Left Front government’s excesses to curb the land stir. Payel spend a night in Singur police lock-up for her mother Krishna Bag was slapped with 11 non-bailable cases. A Baraberi Purbapara housewife, Bag still has to make frequent visits to court and lawyers for these. Today, Bag said, “Ever since Didi has entered Writers’ Buildings, we knew she will do something for us. She has kept her word.” Her neighbour Madhabi Das nodded in agreement. Das is indicted in 23 non-bailable cases.

Titagarh railway yard closure sparks confusion

KOLKATA: The sudden closure of a railway siding at Titagarh has not only given rise to allegations of extortion against a section of Trinamool Congress leaders but also reportedly created a rift between two central ministers from the party. The siding is one of the five major loading points for gunny bags in the Eastern Railway network, the others being Naihati, Kakinara, Budge Budge and Bhadreswarghat.

According to sources, trouble erupted recently after Suresh Prasad and Bhola Prasad – main contractors in charge of loading gunny bags on wagons at the Titagarh yard – complained that they had been asked to pay a sizeable amount to people who claimed to be close to Trinamool leader and Bhatpara MLA Arjun Singh and two others. Party insiders claimed that Singh is close to Barrackpore MP and railways minister Dinesh Trivedi while the contractors belong to Union minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy’s camp.

“We have been doing business here for nearly 50 years. We provide the railways with a revenue of Rs 40-50 crore annually and serve 25 jute mills. For two years now, people close to Arjun Singh have been trying to close down our operations. Now, they have spread rumours that we are anti-socials. When Mamata Banerjee was railways minister, she paid no heed to all these. All of a sudden, they have closed down our operations. Nearly 200 people work under us. They are now sitting idle,” said Bhola Prasad.

According to a railway official, there was confusion when the complaint was received. Nobody wished to get involved as the names of two important ministers had cropped up. After much deliberation, the siding was finally closed down. The official reason given was that a line in the yard is being extended to increase the goods handling capacity.

Singh, when contacted by TOI, said that he was not aware of any such problem at the yard. “I haven’t heard of any such problem. Why don’t you speak to Barrackpore MLA Shibhadra Dutta? The railway yard falls in his constituency,” the MLA from Bhatpara said.

Dutta also insisted that he wasn’t aware of any extortion bid at the railway yard. “Nobody has brought this to my notice. I was told the yard is being closed down as the space would be required for extension of platforms at Titagarh to accommodate 12-coach EMU rakes,” he said.

Railway officials claimed that the yard has been closed down, not for the extension of platforms but to increase capacity. “Line 5 in the yard is being extended to increase the capacity of handling wagons,” one of them said. Some officials, on condition of anonymity, however, maintained that the extension work could have been carried out even if the yard had remained operative.

Chief secy’s term extended by six months

KOLKATA: Samar Ghosh’s tenure as the chief secretary of the state has been extended by six months from March. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee wants Ghosh to continue as the chief secretary since her dispensation is only nine-month-old and a bureaucrat like him is required at the helm of governance. It is learnt that the 1977-batch IAS officer had expressed his reluctance when Mamata first approached him.

The UPA government, which is now keeping Mamata in good humour after its recent poll debacle, has cleared the state’s request.

The Union department of personnel and training under the ministry of personnel, which is headed by the Prime Minister himself, has approved the state’s proposal.

The IAS rules have specific provisions that say the chief secretary’s service may be extended for a period not exceeding six months on the recommendation of the state government with “full justification and in public interest” with prior approval of the Centre.

Getting the current chief secretary to stay on was Mamata’s brainwave. She drew reference to the Congress government in Odisha (then Orissa) which had given Rabi Das two extensions (six months each) as chief secretary in the Nineties. Das was given extensions by then chief minister Biju Patnaik and his successor Janki Ballav Patnaik. IAS officers across the board agreed that the chief minister’s plan was befitting under the current circumstances.

A secretary at Writers’ Buildings said, “The government is still learning the ropes and a man like Ghosh is needed to give it some stability. There have been quite a few faux pas so far, and the chief secretary seems to be the only one who can stand up to a wrong decision.”

March 14 tagged as Krishak Divas

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Nandigram on March 14 to commemorate the death of 14 people who were killed in police firing back in 2007. Also, her government has decided to observe the day as Krishak Divas (Farmers’ Day) in the state.

Making the announcement at Writers’ Buildings, the chief minister said on Monday, “This is a historic decision. Nandigram and Singur are symbolic of farmers’ movement in Bengal. I would go to Nandigram on March 14 to observe the first Krishak Divas. We can’t have an elaborate meeting because of the board examinations this year, we will line up a host of programmes next year to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the movement.

“We are a pro-farmer government and we are here to protect the interest of the farmers.”

However, political observers see the chief minister’s clarion call to stand by the farmers as the strategy to woo voters in the upcoming panchayat polls. Currently, the Trinamool Congress government is facing severe criticism in light of the spate of farmer suicides in the state. A large section of the society and analysts are blaming the government’s agricultural mismanagement for the suicides. Mamata’s decision to observe March 14 as Krishak Divas seems to be a ploy to take the wind out of the Left Front’s campaign against the government.

While conducting the press conference on Monday, Mamata also highlighted a poster by a cooperative bank which threatened to attach properties of farmers who couldn’t repay the loan. “This poster is in line with an Act passed by the Left Front. We have decided to amend the West Bengal Cooperative Societies Act, 2006, to protect the farmers from such harmful steps,” she assured.

“We have lodged an FIR against the bank manager (Pranab Bhuniya) who has printed this poster,” the chief minister added.Police firing on anti-land acquisition for a chemical hub by the Indonesian Salim group had resulted in the death of 14 people at Nandigram in East Midnapore on March 14, 2007, while several others sustained bullet injuries. The subsequent outcry saw peasants and the civil society rallying around Mamata against the Left Front whose popularity starting waning with the Singur lathicharge on farmers and then the Nandigram firing. The 34-year rule eventually came to an end last year when the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata won the historic assembly elections.

Homemaker political tussle over woman’s murder

Malda: The murder of a 41-year-old homemaker in Malda got mired in political turmoil, with each party – Congress, Trinamool Congress and CPM – claiming that the victim was their supporter.

Both the Trinamool and the Congress held CPM responsible for the murder. CPM, however, got an edge in this political tussle after Kanchan’s husband Tapan conceded that they were CPM supporters.

On Friday night, Kanchan Malo was brutally killed at Gobindapara village of Malda over a family feud. A hot iron rod was pierced through her belly. She was taken to the district hospital and later referred to North Bengal Medical College, Siliguri. Kanchan succumbed to her injury on Saturday night. Following the murder, police arrested the victim’s distant relatives, Subho Malo and Chaiti Malo.

Police said that the Malo family had been embroiled in a feud for the past year over the It was the theft of a mobile phone. which had triggered the feud.

A number of kangaroo courts were also held at Gobindapara over the dispute, but the case remained unresolved. The feud took a gruesome turn on Friday night.

However, as soon as the news of Kanchan’s death spread, political parties tried to cash in on the murder. The Trinamool Congress claimed Kanchan was their supporter and blamed CPM for the incident. Minister of state for health, Chandrima Bhattacharya, said, “Our party workers are murdered at the hands of CPM goons all over the state. Mamata Banerjee has directed us to stand by the victim.” Chandrima wasted no time and visited the victim’s family on Monday along with Sabitri Mitra, minister in charge of women welfare. Bhattacharya also assured a sum of Rs 20,000 for Kanchan’s family.

Interestingly, Congress claimed on Sunday night that the victim was a party worker. Chanchal MLA Asif Mehboob said, “I don’t care what a minister said about the identity of the deceased. In fact, being a minister she might go to any victim’s family. But she cannot change the victim’s political identity. Kanchan was a lifelong Congress supporter. She was killed by CPM-backed goons. After her death, our party members were with the family throughout the night.”

CPM was not to be left behind. Though the party was held responsible for the murder, on Monday CPM panchayat pradhan of Malatipur, Manirul Sk, said that Kanchan was a CPM supporter. “A dirty political game has started over the murder. There was no political motive behind this murder. It was a family feud. Those who are claiming Kanchan as their supporter should know that she belonged to our party. In the last assembly elections, Tapan Malo and his wife Kanchan took part in our door to door campaign. Everybody in the village knows this.But her death had nothing political behind it. We have requested the ministers to stand by the family instead of giving the murder a political colour to the murder.”

Much to the embarrassment of the Trinamool and the Congress, Kanchan’s husband Tapan said that they supporterd CPM. were CPM supporters.

Murder of a housewife in a family tiff may be pathetic, but worse is the political calims over her identity. Such a ridiculous political turmoil has started with Kanchan Malo (41) who was brutally killed in a family feud at village Gobindapara under Chanchal police station of Malda. On Friday night she was attacked with a hot iron rod which was pierced in her belly. Wounded Malo was taken to District Hospital and then was referred to North Bengal Medical College, Siliguri. On Saturday night she succumbed to her injury. Two of her relatives as well as neighbours Subho Malo and Chaiti Malo were arrested in connection with the murder.

Police sources said that a year old feud was behind such murder which all started with the theft of a mobile phone. Number of kangaroo courts was held at Gobindapara over this dispute. However, the issue remained unsettled and finally took the gruesome turn on Friday night.

But soon after the death, political parties were at field to capitalize the murder. Claiming Malo as their supporter, Trinamool Congress accused CPM for this murder. Minister of State for health Chandrima Bhattacharya who was on Malda today rushed to see the family of Malo. Before that Bhattacharya said, “Our party workers are murdered at the hands of CPM goons all over the state. Mamata Banerjee has directed us to stand beside the victims.” Bhattachrya along with Minister in Charge of Women Welfare Sabitri Mitra visited Gobindapar to show their solidarity to the victim’s family. Bhattachraya even assured of Rs 20000 to the family of Malo.

Interestingly Congress made the same claim yesterday. MLA of Chanchal Asif Mehboob talking over telephone, said, “I don’t care what a minister claimed about the identity of the dead. In fact being a minister she might go to any victim’s family. But she cannot change the victim’s political identity. Malo was a life long Congress supporter. She was killed by CPM backed goons. After the death of Malo our party members were along with her family for the entire night.”

The dispute did not end even here. Today Manirul Sk, CPM Panchayet Prodhan of Malatipur said, “A dirty political game has started over the murder. There was no political motive behind this murder. It was a sheer family feud. And those who are claiming Malo as their supporter should know that Malo belonged to our party. Even in the last assembly election Tapan Malo and his wife Kanchan took part in our door to door campaign. Everybody in the village knows this. But her death had nothing political behind it. We have requested the Ministers to stand by the family but not to make politics over this issue.” In fact true to his claim, Tapan Malo in presence of Ministers reiterated that they were CPM supporters to the much embarrassment of both the Ministers.

Didi memoirs detail cop role in Nandigram

KOLKATA: While the CBI probe report on the March 14, 2007, firing in Nandigram – and the role of police officers in it – is yet to be made public, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already detailed it in 34 pages of her recently published “My Unforgettable Memories”.

A division bench of Calcutta high court had on November 16, 2007, said the police firing in Nandigram was unjustified and unconstitutional. It had also directed the CBI to inquire into the incident. Challenging the high court order, the previous Left Front government had moved the Supreme Court, which later restrained the CBI from initiating criminal proceedings in any court against police officers involved in the firing. CBI had placed its report before the apex court on March 15, 2011. But on February 25, this year, the state has withdrawn the special leave petition challenging the high court order which had described the firing as “unconstitutional”. So, now, CBI is free to initiate criminal proceedings against policemen (and others) in the matter.

While little is known on CBI findings on the role of police officers, Mamata’s no-holds-barred memoir leaves little to imagination and mentions the designation of these officers. “March 4, Sunday. CPM leaders had a secret meeting with the police in room number 26 of the Kolaghat Power Station guest house. The subject of their discussion: Operation Nandigram. Present in the meeting was the state police IG (West) and DIG. Apart from police and administration, several rounds of meeting focused on how to save their backyard. They started collecting people around Nandigram. For instance, 200 people at Janani brick kiln, 300 at Tekhali camp, 150 at Kunjapur, 100 at Swadhin Pramanik’s house in Sathkhand, 40 at Chunapiri market, 50 at Bakhatalla, and 50 at Malda, Kamrada, and Vidyapith. All of them were from Purulia, Bankura, and Jharkhand.” Mamata first wrote this in “Nandi Maa”, a 2010 publication, excerpts of which were republished in her latest memoirs.

Mamata writes: “Police sources later revealed that six teams had been formed to accomplish the task of occupying Nandigram.” She writes that according to the police roster, Team 1 was in charge of the area between Bhangabera and Sonachura. Team 2 was in charge of the area between Nandigram and Mahespur. The officers leading this team were West Midnapore additional police superintendent (Operation); Bidhannagar additional police superintendent; Katoa, Kalyani SDPO; DSP traffic; Contai and Purulia court inspector; and another inspector from Birbhum. According to her, Team 3 was in charge of the area between Tekhali outpost and Adhikari Para. The officers leading this team were Tamluk and Howrah (rural) additional police superintendents; Purulia co-police superintendent; Gangarampur, Tamluk SDPO; highway inspector; Contai and Tamluk CI, and two DIOs.

In the same chapter she mentions that the other teams too had chosen police officers trusted by the CPM regime. She then names them. “Team 4 was in Tekhali with the DIG (Midnapore range) himself in-charge. With him were additional police superintendent Kharagpur; of Jadavpur, Bankura DSP and battalion co-director; Tamluk court inspector; and traffic inspector West Midnapore. Team 5 was stationed at the Nandigram police station. Its in-charge was the additional police superintendent (headquarters), IB DSP, CI (Manbazar), telecom, and another inspector. Team 6 was under the IG himself and included an additional police superintendent, Bolpur, Raghunathpur SDPO; and two inspectors each from Sonamukhi and Bankura.”

That’s not all. She also mentions that a list of the mobile phone numbers of the top police officers had also been prepared. Apart from these top 55 police officers there were a team of junior police officers and other policemen, she writes. However, she hasn’t mentioned any names.

In another place, Mamata wrote that detectives (she didn’t specify exactly which detectives) visited Nandigram and filed their field report to the government as early as January 4. “In their report, they said the situation at Singur and the police excesses in the area was beginning to create unrest in Nandigram. Three reports had been submitted to Writers’ in the beginning of January. The final report was submitted to Writers’ Building in the second week of March. If the police forces enter Nandigram there will be a confrontation and it could lead to a big accident, said the report. Each of these reports went to the home secretary and DG. The chief minister too was briefed about them. But it was decided that police will take the CPM cadres along with it and forcibly enter Nandigram,” she writes.

Trinamool man killed

Jagaddal: Goons gunned down a 34-year-old Trinamool leader was shot dead by some unidentified miscreants at Mominpur near Jagaddal in North 24-Parganas on Monday night. Police are looking for the accused, no arrests were made till late night.

The incident occurred around 8pm, Santosh Rajak, an employee of Anglo India Jute Mill, was standing in front of a tea stall when a white car stopped there. Police said that the incident took place around 8pm