Bombs found in a Nandigram village

Nov. 20: The Centre has asked the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government thrice in the past 10 days to ensure a mechanism to coordinate the actions of security agencies in Nandigram.

A home ministry official said “a need to coordinate their (security agencies’) actions and fix responsibility” prompted the advisories. The last went on November 15.

A joint control room was opened in Nandigram last week, but CRPF insiders said there has been little or no exchange of intelligence.

“We wanted a list of those absconding from the troubled areas. It is still to come,” a senior officer said.

Personnel from the state armed police, Eastern Frontier Rifles, a paramilitary force under state control, and the CRPF are now working in the war zone.

Bengal has insisted that the CRPF and state police jointly patrol the affected areas, preventing the central force from raiding sensitive areas on its own.

The central paramilitary force would like three things.

First, that the state declare Nandigram “disturbed”, giving it special powers to act. If that is not possible, the state police should be instructed to send an officer of the rank of sub-inspector with CRPF teams on search operations.

Third, the paramilitary force needs local intelligence which, in this case, is expected from the police.

The CRPF’s reaction forced the state yesterday to reverse its decision to shift five camps further from the trouble- prone areas. State police chief A.B. Vohra said yesterday that he had not issued any instruction to shift the camps.

Even now, the camps are far from the hotbed but the shift would have taken them further away.

Sources said the central force wanted camps in the heart of the affected areas where patrolling could be done on foot within a 5km radius. The present camps are 5 to 15km from the trouble spots.

Police officers have apparently asked their CRPF counterparts to patrol on vehicles which, a paramilitary officer said, would not help instil security among villagers terrorised by CPM cadres.

CBI probe

The CBI brass are going through the Calcutta High Court order directing them to investigate the March 14 police firing in Nandigram.

“It is a long, detailed order with several nuances. We are studying it carefully before we constitute a team,” a senior official said.

The court, which had ear- lier ordered a preliminary in-quiry, asked for a full-fledged one after holding the firing “unconstitutional and unjustified”.