Petition from Little Magazine Somonnoy (group of more than 150 little magazines from Bengal)

To The Governor,
Government of West Bengal

Dear Sir,

At the outset, we would like to convey our heartfelt regards to you for your humane reaction to the carnage organized at Nandigram. We are also well aware of your sensitivity to the little magazines, a rich tradition of Bengal in literary creativity, outspokenness and humanism.

This is to share our concern with you over the developments happening in this state in the name of industrialization, resulting in massive land-grabbing and eviction of farmers from the fertile lands. Especially, the murders at Singur and the genocide at Nandigram have broken our hearts and made us panic-stricken. We vehemently condemn these incidents and demand for severe punishment of the culprits. We would request you to intervene at your capacity, at the most, to book these murderers so that such incidents never occur in future.

We are also concerned on the continuous attacks organized from the Khejuri side on the villages of Nandigram by the main ruling party along with the police. The villagers of Nandigram are spending sleepless nights and are living in a state of horror. On the one hand the Chief Minister is talking of initiating a political process but on the other, continuous bombing is going on the Nandigram villagers. Is this not a double-standard practice aiming to vitiate the entire peace process? We would earnestly request you to see that at first the terror is stopped on immediate basis and the people of Nandigram be treated not like foreign adversaries. Our team members have recently visited the affected areas of Nandigram and have prepared a first-hand report on the situation prevailing there, a copy of which is enclosed here for your kind perusal.

Moreover, many little magazines published from this state are also facing a lot of threats and pressures from the ruling elite for their outspoken stature. In a way, we are also concerned of loosing our freedom of expression in a major way. We would like to draw your kind attention to such ill-developments as well.

Once again our prayer to you to intervene and stop the state-backed terror unleashed in the villages of Nandigram, Singur and other places in this state.

With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,

Premangsu Dasgupta, Convenor
On Behalf of
Little Magazine Somonnoy (Prastuti) Mancha