Calcutta, Sept. 16: An attempt by the Mamata Banerjee government to earmark its own land has run into angry women who have uprooted demarcation pegs, driven away police and claimed their right to around 145 acres.

The events have been unfolding over the past 48 hours - not in Singur but in Calcutta.

The land in question is valued at around Rs 4,350 crore, at Rs 30 crore an acre, near Ruby Hospital as well as the Urbana housing project. The location and proximity to the residential complex are some of the reasons for the high land value.

At Chowbaga, a kilometre east of EM Bypass, Nirmala Bodhak said: "This is our land and we will try our best to protect it. The state government will have to sit with us and discuss the compensation ( kshotipuran) before we agree to leave."

" Kshotipuran" has taken on an unintended meaning in Bengal since the Singur verdict allowed the land-losers to retain their land as well as the compensation because they had not been able to farm for a decade.

Although the Supreme Court order was confined to the Singur plots and the case dealt with faulty land acquisition, an impression has gained ground in pockets of Bengal that any land dispute can be milked for compensation.

The Chowbaga land belonged to a zamindar. The government had vested the land and taken it over after the zamindari system was abolished but the original owners challenged the move in the 1970s.

A single bench of Calcutta High Court had ruled in favour of the petitioners. Before that order could be challenged, the owners sold the land to a real estate developer.

However, in March this year, a division bench of the high court ruled in favour of the government.

By then, alleged squatters had taken over parts of the land, football fields had sprouted and stretches of farmland and fisheries had struck root.

Yesterday, land department officials planted pegs to formally mark the land. As word spread, the villagers descended with women at the forefront, scuffled with the officials and formed a human chain to resist the process.

"The pegs were uprooted in front of us by the women demonstrators. We could not disperse them because there weren't enough policewomen with us," said an officer from Anandapur police station.

On Friday, when the officials turned up with more policewomen, the women protesters pushed and shoved them, uprooted the pegs again and flung them away. The government teams went back again.

The occupants of the plot, who claim to have been living there for three decades, said they were in the dark about what had happened in the high court in March.

"We have pattas. The police and government officials did not produce any documents to establish their right to the land. Let them come with their papers, then we will show ours," said Prasenjit Bodhak, who introduced himself as a farmer.

Government officials said there could be no patta within the jurisdiction of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Pattas give farmers the right to till vested land but do not bestow ownership.

The occupants of the land say that around 350 families live in the area and 300 are farmers. Around 30 families depend on fisheries for their livelihood. "We can use the farmland only in the monsoon months. The land cannot be cultivated the rest of the year because of a lack of water," said Prasenjit.

Bhagya Kumar, who too introduced himself as a farmer, said there was no question of giving up and "we will fight till the end".

"The government will have to sit with us. We are inviting them to come and discuss the compensation package. The compensation may be money or suitable relocation or both. But we want discussions," he said.