Reflecting his party’s defiant arrogance, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today that armed CPM cadres were “morally and legally justified” entering Nandigram. “For 11 months, members of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) ruled Nandigram unopposed. They evicted our cadres and tortured them. The police could not enter because I did not want a repeat of March 14 (when 14 were killed in police firing). Our people retaliated in desperation. The Opposition has been paid back in the same coin,” he said.

Perhaps, Bhattacharjee, a man known for his literary sensibility as much as his political conviction, would have preferred to use a kinder, gentler phrase had he been here watching Taslima Bibi, cradling her seven-month-old, desperately looking for her afternoon quota of khichri.

Taslima is one of the 5,000 villagers hounded out of their homes by CPM cadres over the last fortnight and now stranded in the sprawling playground of a local school, the Brojomohan Tiari Institute, which serves as the largest of the half a dozen relief camps across Nandigram that, in all, house an estimated 10,000 refugees.

“The food is so inadequate here,” says Taslima, “that it is almost like starving but we cannot complain, at least my husband and I are getting something to eat.” Food and care for the child, however, is her biggest worry. “Today is my eighth day in this relief camp and I don’t know when we will be able to return.”

She left her home in Jalpai village after an armed band of CPM cadres entered the village, assaulted residents and began firing. “All the men of the village fled, it was no more safe to be at home.”

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