A dog rummages through the battlefield on Sunday

Nandigram, Jan. 7: A gun- shot rang out around 3.30 am. Bharat Mondal, 28, who had been staying up all night with other residents of Sonachura to prevent police or CPM cadre from entering, slumped to the ground.

“He was shot in the stomach. We tried to help but he died around 5.30. All this while, the gunshots kept ringing. It was only around 8 am that things quietened,” said Akshay Kajili, still in a daze.

According to the villagers, the 250-odd gunmen, be- lieved to be CPM supporters, fired for over three hours from 3 am.

“When we began to collect the bodies, they set fire to houses in the Goalpara area,” Kajili said.

“They were in fatigues and armed with guns and bombs, while we had lathis and daggers. Our women were carrying sickles but they were of no use in the darkness,” Nimai Mondol recounted this afternoon.

The panchayat of Sonachura, which is slated to be acquired for an SEZ and other projects, is CPM controlled. “We were expecting that the CPM cadre would try to force their way into the village. Hence, around 5,000 villagers were standing guard,” said Kajili as he wheeled in the body of friend Bharat into the Nandigram hospital this morning.

The gunmen had set up camps on three sides of the village. Around 8 last night, two bombs went off at the back of the village across the Chandrapur canal.

It was in the front approach — near the Talpatti bridge on the Bhangabera canal — that the villagers had gathered under a tarpaulin shelter to keep vigil. Across the bridge stood the gunmen’s largest bunker.

Another bomb went off around 10 pm but still there were no casualties.

Whenever a bomb was hurled, the villagers would duck for cover and shout slogans. Chants of “Buddha-r shilpa, golpo” and “Salim-er dalal Biman Bose murdabad” would rent the air. Around 3.30 am, intensive bombing began, accompanied by gunshots.

As 14-year-old Biswajit Maiti’s body was brought to the hospital this morning, an onlooker screamed: “What kind of a criminal would try to kill a boy this young?”