India’s Tata group has sent its strongest signal yet that it might scrap its flagship plan to make the world’s cheapest car in West Bengal state, saying thousands of protesters were “violently obstructing” construction of the project’s factory.

Tata Motors said it was suspending construction work indefinitely at the site of the plant in Singur, near Kolkata, which has been besieged for the past two weeks by political activists who claim poor farmers were forcibly evicted to make way for the project.