They decided to defer their protest for two days after a meeting with the Officer-in-Charge of Nandigram Police Station, Debashis Chakraborty, who asked them to give him 48 hours to bring back normalcy.

Fresh tension was reported in the area on Sunday, a day after the all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Following requests from all political parties except the Trinamool, he had asked the police to conduct search operations to recover arms and bombs from Nandigram and Khejury.

On Monday, however, Abu Taher, saha sabhapati of Nandigram Panchayat Samity, did not oppose the search operations.

He said: “The Trinamool has decided to postpone its protest programme after the promise from Chakraborty. He wanted the policeto scour Khejuri for firearms and the Trinamool will not stop the police from doing so.”

East Midnapore Superintendent of Police S S Panda ruled out door-to-door search operations in the villages.

“We will not conduct raids based on the information provided by political parties. The police will begin operations only after getting specific tip-offs,” he added.