Violence at Salim Project Site ????

India's eastern city of Kolkata today shut down as opposition parties rallied protesters against
violence in an outlying area earmarked for a Salim Group project.

Trains, ferries and privately-run buses didn't ply since 6 a.m. local time, when Trinamul Congress, the main opposition in West Bengal state, enforced the 12-hour strike.

Protesters torched a bus and pelted four others with stones. Passengers are stranded at the city's airport and two main train stations, television pictures showed.

At least 14 people were killed on March 14 at Nandigram, a rural precinct, when police clashed with villagers protesting the acquisition of their land for industry, the Press Trust of India reported.

The violence mounted political pressure on the administration, which is wooing investors to stem a three-decade industrial decline. Angry lawmakers forced the federal parliament to put off the day's business for an hour today.

Kolkata, home to India's biggest tobacco company ITC Ltd., is the capital of the communist-run West Bengal.

The Salim Group of Indonesia, the Universal Success Group and Indian realtor Unitech Ltd. said in July they will form New Kolkata International Development Pvt. for infrastructure projects in West Bengal in the next 15 years. Among the projects planned is a chemical industrial estate, including a chemical export zone spread over 10,000 acres of land at Nandigram.