Intellectuals in a unique protest against Singur, Nandigram

Kolkata, January 24: City-based intellectuals, litterateur, doctors, advocates and artists staged a demonstration today at Metro channel near Esplanade, protesting against the “forcible land acquisition” in Singur and the killings of peasants and destruction of property at Nandigram.

Noted cultural groups and renowned artists joined in the protests by singing songs, drawing pictures, reciting poems and voicing their opinions on the incidents at Singur and Nandigram. Among those present were actors Aparna Sen and Bibhas Chakraborty, singers Kabir Suman and Shaonli Mitra and other intellectuals like Sunanda Sanyal, Sujoy Basu, Jaya Mitra, Gourishankar Ghatak, Ramaprasad Dey and Prabir Gupta. The sit-in demonstrations started at 12 noon and continued till 7 pm. After the protest rally of intellectuals on January 12, this was the second step taken by them. Following this will be a convention whereby the artists and intellectuals want to create a strong public opinion against the state government’s actions in the two places.

“We will not sit quiet. The state government, under the garb of industrialisation is just snatching away land of the poor farmers and giving them to capitalists. The poor farmers are getting robbed,” said Tapan Roychoudhuri, the person who organised the demonstration.

“Painters painted on canvases, singers sang songs of protest, elocutionists recited verses to protest against the state government’s stand. They just drew daggers at the way the police is harassing the locals. Now hooligans belonging to certain political parties are creating ruckus in those areas,” said Roychoudhuri.

“No one can sit mumb if there is something unjust going on in the state. The state government, through all these actions, is trying to create a state withing a state, that is, they are trying to alienate people. This is wrong and hence we are raising voice so that it stops,” Roychoudhuri said.

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