Kolkata, March 15 (IANS) Dubbing the police firing on villagers at Nandigram as unconstitutional, the Calcutta High Court Thursday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the carnage that led to the deaths of 14 people a day earlier.
A division bench of Calcutta High Court headed by Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh asked a CBI team to immediately leave for Nandigram, 150 km from here, to probe the firing and submit a report.
Taking suo motu cognisance of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by a group of lawyers, the court asked the CBI to constitute a special team to probe the firing and also asked the state government to file an affidavit on every detail of the incident.
The court asked the CBI to file a report within seven days on who ordered the firing, said lawyer Kalyan Bandopadhayay, one of the lawyers who moved the PIL.
"The court dubbed the firing unconstitutional," Bandopadhayay said.
It also asked a human rights organisation - Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) - to reach medical assistance to the Nandigram villagers, Bandopadhayay said.
The violence at Nandigram was brought to the notice of the court Wednesday with the West Bengal government informing it about the police firing following a directive from the chief justice.
At least 14 people were killed and 39 injured in Nandigram Wednesday as police opened fire to quell mobs and retake the area they lost control of in January after unrest over acquisition of farmland for a special economic zone (SEZ).
