A rally in Nandigram

Nandigram, May 6: A woman ran naked half a kilometre in Nandigram after she was stripped and thrashed by alleged CPM supporters for refusing to campaign for the party, eyewitnesses said on Monday.

So inconsolable was the 28-year-old that she refused a sari proffered by a police party, following which she was again beaten up in front of the law-enforcers by a political mob, the witnesses added.

The CPM denied such an incident had taken place, and the police said no one was beaten in their presence.

Wild charges do fly when elections are round the corner — the panchayat polls begin on May 11 — but the woman and several people who The Telegraph spoke to provided graphic details and a doctor said her body was covered with bruises.

According to the witnesses, around 8am on Monday, about 50 CPM supporters came to Keyakhali village, which houses many people who back the Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee that was at the forefront of the campaign against land acquisition in Nandigram.

The group entered the house of Debashish Jana, 35, a farm labourer, and forced him and his eight-year-old son Sanjoy to join a CPM procession. The woman — Jana’s wife — protested following which the intruders pounced on her and ripped off her sari, blouse and petticoat. Then they rained blows on her.

“I was stripped. My only fault was protesting against the manner in which my husband and son were forced to join the procession,” said the woman, now in Nandigram block hospital. Her husband and son could not be traced after they were dragged to the procession.

While being beaten, the woman rushed out of the hosuse naked and started running towards Brindabanchowk, around 500 metres away. The intruders then chased her in a throwback to last year’s outrage in Guwahati where an Adivasi girl was stripped and assaulted.