NEW DELHI (AFP) — New Delhi Saturday dispatched 1,000 troops to an Indian farming region where seven people have died this month in growing protests against plans to build a massive industrial park, officials said.
The decision came after a protester died Saturday and amid allegations local police are turning a blind eye to attacks by left-wing activists on protesters opposing the planned industrial park in Marxist-ruled West Bengal.
United News of India and residents put the number of protesters killed Saturday at three and 30 injured but the report could not be immediately confirmed.
"Considering the overall situation in West Bengal, the central government has decided to send one battalion (1,000 soldiers) of the Central Reserve Police Force," a federal home ministry spokesman said.
Saturday's violence sparked a fresh exodus of hundreds of frightened families from the lush district of Nandigram, police said.
Analysts say it is part of a turf war between the communists and the opposition Trinamul Congress party, which has made huge political gains in Marxist-ruled West Bengal.
Since March, 21 people have died in clashes between the Marxists, who want to set up the industrial enclave called a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and Trinamul-backed villagers who oppose the acquisition of 14,500 acres (5,900 hectares) of land for the park.
Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi condemned the violence.
"A large number of armed persons from outside Nandigram have forced themselves into villages for territorial assertion," Gandhi said in state capital Kolkata.
"Thousands of villagers have consequently been intimidated into leaving their homes and no government or society can allow a war zone to exist without immediate and effective action," Gandhi said.
India's ruling Congress party urged Bengal's Marxist regime to tackle the growing unrest.
"It's time this human problem is addressed by the state government," party spokesman Abhisekh Sangvi said.
The Marxists, who prop up India's Congress-led coalition government, hope to hand over the land to Indonesia's Salim Group to set up a petrochemical hub.
There are already 149 SEZs in India, employing 41,000 people, and the government hopes they will generate 25 billion dollars' worth of exports in 2008-2009.
Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee resigned her seat in the national parliament Saturday saying she found the violence "repugnant."
"This Marxist government has crossed all boundaries and I find this politics of bloodshed repugnant," she said.
Kshiti Goswami, a West Bengal state housing minister, also said he was resigning his job to protest the violence.
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