Shot thrice, Shanti Buri calls for peace

KOLKATA: Her wrinkled face and weary eyes make her look much older than her 75 years. Clutching on to a rickety stick, she walks with a hunch and leans against the wall for support every two minutes. Yet, Kalpana Munian's eyes light up when you talk about peace in Nandigram.
Shot in the stomach and arms and abducted by CPM men during the November 10 carnage in 2007, the resident of Gangra now preaches peace in trouble-torn Sonachura.Lovingly referred to as "Shanti Buri" in Gangra, she goes door-to-door asking both CPM and Trinamool men to give up arms.
While walking in a peace procession to protest CPM atrocities on that fateful November morning, Munian was confronted by armed men who fired at her from close range. Even as she bled profusely, she was forced into a vehicle.
"The gang was led by Tapan Ghosh-Shukur Ali duo (CPM men). I didn't know either of them and begged for mercy. Soon, I realized they were taking us to Egra where we would be thrown into a ditch and buried alive. Fortunately, the vehicle was intercepted and we were saved," recalled Munian. She bears no grudge against Tapan-Sukur who were later arrested.
But unless peace returned, November 10 and March 14 would be repeated, she felt. "I was lucky to survive but scores of others weren't. They had stuffed several bodies into a cycle-van that took us to hospital. At least two children lay motionless beside me. I could smell the blood and the stench from the corpses. It was a nightmare that didn't seem to end," said Munian. One of the bullets shattered her left wrist, two punctured her stomach and a fourth one grazed past her head. Munian was taken to SSKM Hospital where a surgery saved her life.
"I didn't want to live in a village where people went for each other's throats. So, I decided to work for peace. Every morning, I make it a point to meet people from both parties and tell them to bury the past. Every youth in Nandigram is my like my son irrespective of the party he supports. Let us stop this mindless violence," Munian said.
A former Trinamool supporter, she refuses to wear her party colours any longer. "I was never into politics and now I am staunchly against this political divide. I have no party," she said.
The terror of November 10 still haunts her. "I can hear the screams and the firing when I close my eyes. The ruthless killers, their faces masked, running amok as helpless women and children scampered for cover. And the faces of the two
innocent children who lay in that van with me. It is time we realized that violence and hatred can't solve any issue. It can only take away lives," Munian warned.