Durgapur, Feb. 2: About 50 Trinamul Congress supporters today stopped work on a fencing around the land acquired for the first phase of the airport city project in Burdwan’s Andal.

They marched to a spot at Amlauka mouza, where construction was in progress, and asked the workers to stop. When a security guard tried to intervene, he was beaten up.

Amlauka is among the four mouzas from where 1,049 acres have so far been acquired.

After the trouble, promo-ters Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd suspended work. “We did not want to take any risk. A security guard was beaten up. We have informed the administration about it,” said Kal-lol Seal, its general manager (projects).

The villagers alleged that all registered sharecroppers and farm labourers of the affected mouzas had not been paid compensation yet. “We will not allow work to start unless they are paid,” said Chinmoy Mondal, 35, a resident of neighbouring Banguri mouza.

The district authorities said only farmhands whose claim to compensation was disputed had not got their money. “Compensation has been paid to 90 per cent of the recorded bargadars (sharecroppers). Some of the claims are disputed and they are being checked,” said Abhijeet Mukhopadhyay, additional district magistrate (land acquisition).

The government had handed over the 1,049 acres to Bengal Aerotropolis last year for the first phase of the Rs 10,000-crore project. Work on the fencing started on December 21.

Trinamul’s Durgapur leader Prabhat Chatterjee admitted that the villagers who stopped work were its supporters.