An accused farmer is brought to court. A Telegraph picture

Gangarampur, Feb. 28: Potato farmers in South Dinajpur have demanded that the administration find ways to prevent middlemen from buying up space in the cold storage here, a day after lack of space in the facility sparked a clash between the cultivators and police.

“These middlemen, in collusion with the society that runs the facility, use fake names to buy storage space that should ideally be kept for us,” said Abdul Ahmed, a potato farmer from Kumarganj. “The administration must identify the real farmers and ensure that only they get to buy bonds for space.”

Yesterday, around 3,000 farmers attacked the cold storage here after the Gangarampur Agricultural Marketing Society Ltd refused to sell them bonds for space on the ground that the cold storage was already filled to its capacity of 10,000 tonnes.

The police rained batons on the farmers, burst tear gas shells and fired one round in the air to quell the mob.

The society had claimed that a bumper crop of potatoes in the district had resulted in the space crunch.

However, Robi Sarkar, a farmer from Kushmandi, had said: “The cold-storage owners were trying to create an artificial space crunch so that they could sell the bonds in the black market later.”

Today, supporters of the Agragami Kishan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Forward Bloc, demonstrated before the Gangarampur subdivisional office located 15km from here in Buniyadpur, demanding a probe into the allegations.

“We want the truth to come out,” said the district secretary of the organisation, Balaram Pramanik. “Why should a section of corrupt traders be allowed to book space under fake names and put real farmers in trouble.”

The subdivisional officer Tapas Bagchi reiterated the offer to help the farmers who did not get space in the Gangarampur cold storage to store potatoes in facilities in Malda.

“The administration will subsidise the transport costs and the difference between the price of bonds in Gangarampur and Malda,” said Bagchi.

At the cold storage here, bonds valid for the entire season are sold for Rs 5 for each gunny bag containing 50kg of potatoes. The same bond in Malda costs Rs 10.

In the afternoon, Gangarampur additional chief judicial magistrate Mohitosh Dutta granted interim bail to all the 38 people arrested yesterday for attacking the police and the cold storage.

Their lawyer, Goutam Sen, said the police could not produce any proof that they were the farmers who attacked the law enforcers.

“They did not submit any medical report to prove the injuries of the policemen either,” Sen said.