New Delhi, March 14: The Left today lashed out at a US state department report terming the Nandigram violence a human rights issue and asked Washington to focus on its track record instead.

The Country Report on Human Rights Practices, 2007, was released on Tuesday. “In West Bengal, violence in the Nandigram district led to accusations of state government failure to control ruling communist party cadres, which were accused by human rights groups of killing more than 30 rural villagers and intimidating them through violence and rape,” it said.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta raised the report in the Lok Sabha, saying the mention of Nandigram amounted to “interference” in India’s affairs.

Speaker Somnath Chatterjee discouraged him from making an issue out it. “It should be treated with the contempt it deserves by totally ignoring it,” Chatterjee said.

But Dasgupta raged on. “The issue is it is India’s concern, not the US’s.”