Nandigram, March 3: The road to a Nandigram village was dug up after almost a year today to keep police away as Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee and CPM supporters clashed, leaving many injured.

Tomorrow, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is going on a public relations drive to Nandigram town, 8km from Bachhurmari, where the Pratirodh Committee resorted to cutting trenches as in early 2007.

A mob beat up CPM supporter Sheikh Akram in the village this morning, accusing him of being part of a gang that had earlier attacked committee supporters in Chowringheebazar, 3km away.

A police officer said: “CPM leaders had informed us about the attack. But 200 villagers surrounded our jeep in the village and demonstrated. We were forced to turn back.”

Pratirodh Committee convener and SUCI leader Bhabani Das said: “The villagers feared a police retaliation.”

Akram has been hospitalised.

The police said the situation was tense from the morning because of a bandh called by the committee in protest against yesterday’s violence in Satengabari. Its supporter Debashis Mondal had taken a bullet there.

No government establishment opened here today. Block land officer Ratan Lal Jana said preparations for the chief minister’s trip were shifted to the district land and land reforms office in Tamluk, 60km away.

Bhattacharjee will distribute pattas (tilling rights) to landless farmers. “We took all relevant documents relating to the plots concerned to Tamluk and completed our work there,” said Jana.

In Calcutta, home secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray said jawans of the India Reserve Battalion who had been moved to north Bengal from Nandigram will return soon.

Around 9am, a Pratirodh Committee procession heading to Nandigram police station encountered CPM supporters asking owners to open their shops at Chowringheebazar.

An altercation snowballed into a clash about5km from Nandigram police station. Eleven people belonging to both sides were injured.

Four committee supporters had to be hospitalised.

At Sdatengabari, committee activists attacked CPM supporter Sheikh Tahid’s house and beat him up.