Tamluk, Aug. 10: Bullets flew in Nandigram today, injuring a 50-year-old woman, a day after chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ruled out redeploying the CRPF in the area.

East Midnapore superintendent of police S.S. Panda said: “There was sporadic violence and the police had been sent to defuse the tension.” The exchange of fire between CPM and Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee supporters started in three villages around 5am, the police said.

Hasina Bibi, 50, who is a pratirodh committee supporter, was cleaning her courtyard when the firing intensified in her village, Osmanchak, around 8am. Hasina tried to run inside when “a bullet grazed her eye causing her burn injuries”, said a police officer.

A doctor at Nandigram block hospital said Hasina’s injury was minor and she need not be shifted to a bigger hospital.

The firing stopped after the police arrived from Nandigram around 10am.

A police officer said a camp would be set up at Jadubarichar, one of the three villages that saw trouble today. The other two were Garchakraberia and Osmanchak.

The officer-in-charge of Nandigram police station, Debashish Chakraborty, arrived around noon and spoke to leaders of the pratirodh committee and the CPM. “It was decided at the meeting that an all-party peace meeting would be held at the office of Kalicharanpur gram panchayat under which the the villages fall,” Chakraborty said.

The pratirodh committee leaders alleged that the CPM supporters started firing. They also accused the police of inaction. “The police arrived five hours after we informed them. One of our supporters was injured. She had a close shave and could have been killed,” said Shoem Kazi, a convener of the pratirodh committee.

Kazi said Bhattacharjee’s all-party meeting yesterday was an eyewash.

“It is his party that was firing and hurling bombs and the police are just bystanders. Peace will not return to Nandigram unless this situation changes.” he said. “The CPM is again trying to recapture Nandigram. That is why they are bringing in the red brigade from Khejuri and Haldia.”

The local CPM leaders cited Mamata Banerjee’s absence to say that the Trinamul Congress, which was backing the pratirodh committee, was “not interested in restoring peace in Nandigram”. “They (Trinamul workers) are the ones fomenting trouble. They also beat up two CPM workers in Jadubarichar,” said Ashok Guria, the district secretariat member of the CPM.