Aug. 5: The government today sent some of its seniormost officials to Singur on a security mission, signalling that it was taking seriously Mamata Banerjee’s indefinite siege from August 24.

Home secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti today visited the Tata Motors project site for the first time, accompanied by the director-general of police, A.B. Vohra, and inspector-general of police (law and order) Raj Kanojia.

The general manager of the Singur plant, Dilip Sengupta, was also at the meeting.

After the meeting, Chakrabarti said work at the site had progressed well and law and order “isn’t a matter of concern right now’’.

“The Tata project looks like it’s almost done as nearly 80 per cent of the work is over. They (the Tata officials) assured us of completing the project according to schedule and sounded confident,” he said.

“Some incidents, like the theft of some iron rods, recovery of crude bombs, assault on an engineer and threats to workers, have occurred in the past few weeks. That’s why we went to Singur today and discussed the overall security position,” he added.

“I may visit Singur again next week.”

The home secretary said that Tata officials told him during the meeting that they would not leave the site until the project was complete. “Many Tata officials were present at the meeting. None of them said they would leave Singur. They said they are committed to the project,” the home secretary added.

About the dharna, Chakrabarti said: “We haven’t yet thought about that programme. If there’s a law and order violation before August 24, steps will be taken. The government hasn’t thought about clamping prohibitory orders.”