the period as a consequence of greater production incentives due to a lack of eviction threat and increased output stake. The operation is also credited to have created a cushion against farmers' suicides in West Bengal by improving the economic stability of farmers. The Left Front government also identified 247,000 acres of readily reclaimable lands mostly in the Sundarban area (Ganges Delta) for the resettlement of 136,000 agriculturist refugees from East Pakistan. Under the tenure of Bidhan Chandra Roy, many of the refugees had been relocated to refugee camps in Dandakaranya and the Left Front government had taken up their cause for resettlement in West Bengal. Initially Basu and the Left Front government approved voluntary resettlement in the identified lands by the refugees from the Dandakaranya camps to the extent of actively encouraging them to do so, however the implementation of the resettlement process turned lackluster and was bottle-necked with revised priorities for environmental protection in the Sundarbans. In a significant development between 1978 and 1979, a large group of these impoverished refugees who had returned to Bengal seeking resettlement from Dandakaranya had illegally occupied land on the remote island of Marichjhanpi and refused eviction. In January 1979, following an economic blockade, the government conducted a forcible eviction leading to the death of several refugees in the consequent abuse by police personnel. The incident led to sharp criticism of the government and raised controversy in the media, the opposition as well as from within members of the Left Front coalition. The demand for a formal investigation into the eviction was however denied by the government with Basu convinced that it was greatly exaggerated by the media; in the end the official figure put the deaths at 2 but the lack of an investigation led to various other estimates to circulate on the killing years afterwards. In 1981, a new amendment was introduced to the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1951 (previously amended in 1953, 1967 and 1970) which sought to plug loopholes in the former legislation; the amendment introduced ceilings on non-agricultural lands such as fisheries and orchards which previously had none and enacted provisions for lands held by trusts to be included in the individual ceiling calculations of its beneficiaries. It also derecognised and redefined lands owned by all religious institutions as raiyats (trans: land tenure) with a maximum of 7 standard acres irrespective of any number of declared