New Delhi: Police opened fire at villagers in West Bengal's Nandigram village killing 14 people and injuring many others.
The village has been on the boil ever since the West Bengal government has proposed to give land to Indonesia’s Salim Group for a Special Economic Zone there.
Police fired at the villagers after they were unsuccessful in entering the village and take over the land. Villagers had blocked off Nandigram and had vowed to fiercely guard their land from being acquired by the state government for industrial purposes.
No government official had been allowed to enter since January this year and the government had sent forces to take over the land.
The aftermath of the bloodbath is being felt in New Delhi where Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath has decided not to give approvals for Special Economic Zones where acquisition of land is being resisted.
"When land is to be acquired and it is not decided how the land will be taken and justice done to farmers the freeze would remain on SEZs even if they have other approvals," he was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.
On Thursday, he had said that the Empowered Group of Ministers on SEZs would look "distinctively" at the cases where land was an issue and where acquisition was a problem.
This would ease the way for notification of around 172 proposals of SEZs, where land was available and formal approval of the Board of Approval has been received.
Nath had said that the problem arose not because of the SEZ policy but because of acquisition of land.
(With inputs from PTI)
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