The Massacre
Victims of Nanoor massacre
Seikh Nizam
Rasul Bax
Sabur Seikh
Seikh Salamat
Harai Seikh
Saran Mete
Safikul Seikh
Seikh Safiq
Asraf Seikh
Saifur Seikh
Seikh Ali Hossain
Immediately after the Nanoor massacre, the CPI(M) had tried to confuse the public by initially referring to those killed as dacoits and so on. However, when a spate of reports appeared in the press they were forced to admit that they were indeed landless agricultural wage workers, who were killed because of a land dispute.Somnath Chatterjee, then speaker of the Lok Sabha, in whose parliamentary constituency Nanoor fell, described those killed as "hired goons, dacoits and dreaded anti-socials". The CPI(M) had earlier been trying to analyse what happened in Nanoor as a fight between farmers and landlords desperate to recapture land they had lost earlier but they late changed course.Anil Biswas and Biman Bose, both politburo members and senior leaders of CPI(M), condemned the Nanoor killings and also the violence caused by political rivalry resulting in deaths earlier in the area.
The Hindu wrote, "On a long term, the killings, symbolizing the birth of a new theater of violence after Keshpur in district Midnapore - where deaths and maiming in political clashes have become a bizarre routine - constitute an extremely disturbing augury for the society in Bengal". The West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, said that at least 800 Left Front party workers, mostly belonging to the CPI(M) had been killed in clashes with the supporters of the Trinamool-BJP combine. He felt that everybody, including Left party workers had the right of self-defence, but appealed to them to restrain themselves even in the face of atrocities.
Read more about this topic: Nanoor Massacre
Famous quotes containing the word massacre:
“The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“It is hard, I submit, to loathe bloodshed, including war, more than I do, but it is still harder to exceed my loathing of the very nature of totalitarian states in which massacre is only an administrative detail.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)