Press Release

SAAPE condemns the repressive act of the ruling Left Front government of West Bengal, India on the rural peasants of Singur

The South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) vehemently condemns the recent repressive act of the ruling Left Front government of West Bengal, India on the rural peasants of Singur, located in the Hooghly District, for ruthlessly encroaching on 997 acres of their prime agricultural land only to trade in with the Tata private conglomerate who plans to use the land for industrial purposes.

The deployment of the police and paramilitary troops to carry out the eviction and the use of teargas and rubber bullets at the protesting peasants blatantly displays state terrorism and repression against the poor and the marginalized and the increasing militarization of the state. No authority has any right to displace people for private gains of others in the name of "development". The role of the government is to serve, is to deliver, and not to regulate and control the lives of the people. SAAPE upholds the right to livelihood according to people's own choice. Instead, the West Bengal Government should encourage the TATA group to buy land from the market and not use brutal force to evict the peasants from their ancestral land. SAAPE urgently calls on the governments of West Bengal and India to reconsider their actions and in turn deliver justice to its rural peasant folks.

Let us fight unitedly against poverty, hunger and social injustice!

06 February 2007