WEST BENGAL DIARY
Justice for Tapasi
On 18 December 2006, the badly burnt body of 18-year-old Tapasi Malik (an activist of the movement against land grab) was found at the Nano site in Singur – a site where ‘night guards’ of the CPI(M) warded off protestors at night. CPI(M) cadre were suspected of having killed her, possibly after having raped her, but the CPI(M) spread canards claiming that she had been killed by a lover or had committed suicide due to a tiff with a lover. After much protest, the Chief Minister announced a CBI enquiry into the killing.
Now, based on CBI’s investigation, the Chandannagore Court has found Debu Malik, a powerful local CPI(M) activist, and Suhrid Datta, the Singur Zonal Committee Secretary of the CPI(M), guilty of the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik, and has sentenced them to life imprisonment.
The CPI(M) is now claiming that the CBI probe is a ‘conspiracy’ to malign the party, hinting that the CBI is politically biased. But the CPI(M) had great faith in the CBI’s neutrality as long as Tapasi’s father and brother were being interrogated; it is only when its own leaders were found guilty that the CPI(M) conveniently branded the CBI as biased!
Take a look at what CPI(M) organ PD, 6 May 2007 had to say about the CBI investigation:
“New and definitive light has been shed on the murder of a young woman named Tapasi Malik. Tapasi was done away brutally nearly five months ago one early morning on December 8 and her remains stuffed in a hole within the limits of the automobile factory that is coming up at Singur. Her body was set on fire and was partially burnt. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the case now believes that the young woman’s father and brother might have had something to do with her murder.... In all probability, the duo will be subjected to sophisticated probing techniques as narco-analysis, brain-mapping and DNA testing. ...The father-and-son may also be subjected to a ‘lie-detector’ or ‘polygraph’ test.”
AIPWA Demands Justice for Tapasi
The West Bengal unit of AIPWA demonstrated before the Chandannagar court in Hoogli district when the Tapasi murder case was being heard. After the verdict was pronounced, it brought out a militant procession in Kolkata on 18 November demanding that the Chief Minister of West Bengal should resign owning moral responsibility for the heinous crime committed by his party-men whom his government had all along been trying to protest. The procession culminated in a street meeting on Chowringhee Road which was addressed by comrades Gita Das, Mina Pal, Chaitali Sen and others.
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Sudhanva Deshpande and Vijay Prashad, both intellectuals defending CPI(M), wrote in Counterpunch, May 23, 2007:
“Stories were blown out of context, and allegations flew around (sexual assaults, murders) that have since been shown to be false. The most sensational was the murder of a young woman, Tapasi Malik, who had been a leader in the Singur struggle against the land acquisition. The blogs and the capitalist media blamed this death on the CPM. The Central Bureau of Investigation is now of the view that she was killed by her father and brother.”
A year after Tapasi’s murder, CPI(M)’s CC Member Benoy Konar insulted Tapasi and her family, displaying his trademark sexist bias as well as class bias, saying “Earlier, Tapasi’s father would sell fish at a market in Chinsurah. He had no agricultural plots. Tapasi was a burden on him because she was unmarried. But now he is touring several places in the country. It seems money can buy even conscience and ethics.”
The CPI(M) has the blood of Tapasi Malik on its hands. We cannot forget or forgive this heinous crime, nor the shameful lies and sexist canards that the CPI(M) heaped on her memory to hide its crimes.