Nandigram: Peace may have returned to Nandigram but the red flag, now fluttering all around, still haunts those who bore the brunt of the violence during its recapture.

Sabina Yasmin, a 17-year-old girl of Satengabari viilage, formerly a Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee stronghold, trembles as she narrated the events from November 6 which forced her family to flee home.

"Bullets and bombs started raining on November 6. The attackers were raping women. Fearing for our life, we fled our village," Sabina, a class XI student of Amdabad High School, alleged.

"Our under construction house was razed to the ground last week and our bettle leaf grove destroyed and trees cut down," she said. "My father was a CPI(M) LCM of Ranichawk till January.

But after he sided with the BUPC people in protest against the land acquisition, he was beaten up by CPI(M) workers and asked to go to Khejuri and join the red brigade. He refused and remained with the BUPC," alleged Sabina.

After a couple of days in a relief camp, Sabina s father Yakub Ali asked his younger brother and a sister to go to Satengabari to find out what was happening "As soon as they reached, they were chased with swords and threatened with death.

Since then, we have lost all hopes of going back," she said. But with the winter setting in, Sabina was apprehensive of the tough days ahead. "We need warm clothes and blankets. Without them, how can we survive in the camp?"

Source : PTI