An injured protester in hospital. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Tamluk (East Midnapore), March 14: Sankha Gol, 45, lay moaning in hospital with a fractured skull and broken rib, but still spat out slogans through clenched teeth asking police and the government to stay away from Nandigram.

As blood spurted from his chest, the bullet still lodged inside, 20-year-old Swapan Giri of Sonachura spoke of his 2.5-bigha plot and the plight his family would find themselves in if they lose their farmland.

“We will never give up our land. We will never buckle under the state government’s terrorism. What shall we eat if we lose our land?” he croaked.

The groans of the wounded, some still in their blood-soaked clothes, filled the wards and corridors of Tamluk Sub-divisional Hospital this evening. Those draped in hospital sheets had their blood-stained shirts and trousers piled under their beds.

Most of the 32 people admitted — injured in police firing during a clash near Bhangabera — had to be operated on to remove bullets from their bodies. The rest had fractured skulls and ribs.

The dead were sent to the hospital morgue and sealed by the police, who wouldn’t allow the relatives even a glimpse of the bodies.

Even Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s visit was of no help to the anxious relatives waiting outside the hospital gates.

“The police are not allowing us to enter the hospital. They have threatened us with dire consequences if we try to visit the injured,” alleged Aswin Patra, who said his sister Manjula Jana had taken a police bullet in the chest.

“When Didi (Mamata) arrived at the hospital, I asked her to talk to the authorities so I could have a glimpse of my sister. But even her intervention did not help us. We are being harassed by the police at every step.”

Atal Behari Jana, wardmaster of the hospital, said: “I have been watching the injured being wheeled in, blood oozing from their wounds, since three in the afternoon. Some are unconscious from the blood loss; the rest have been writhing in pain.

“Most of the operations over the past four hours were done to remove bullets lodged in the stomach or the chest.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Tapasi Das had the left side of her buttocks blown away by a gunshot. She was shifted to SSKM Hospital in Calcutta late in the evening with five other seriously injured, all with multiple bullet injuries.

As she writhed in her bed, Sankha Gol wasn’t thinking of herself. She kept asking about her husband Manoranjan, who is still missing.

“We were carrying only sickles and sticks and had squatted on the kachcha road to the village, when the police started firing tear gas shells. Our eyes burning, we ran in all directions in search of water. But we were soon back to stop them from entering our village,” Sankha said.

“To get us out of the way, they started firing in the air. In reply, we threw stones and bricks at them. The police and the CPM cadre fell on us with their sticks. Then they began firing. Many died and hundreds were injured.”