Govt to repair village road in Bajemelia in remembrance of Tapasi Malik

Kolkata: The state government has decided to take up the repair work of the village road at Bajemelia village in Singur and dedicate it in the name of Tapasi Malik, who was raped and burnt to death during the Singur agitation over land acquisition in 2006.

"The entire village road of Bajemelia, which has the residence of Tapasi Malik, will be repaired and a part of it will be named after her. An estimated fund of Rs 5 lakh has been earmarked for this purpose," Trinamool Congress district president of Hooghly Tapan Dasgupta said.

Dasgupta is also the minister of state for Agricultural Marketing. It may be mentioned that the process of preparing the detailed project report (DPR) for the repair of the road, is already underway.

Tapasi Malik is always remembered by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a martyr of 34 years of Left Front violence and she urges the people of the state to never forget the 'martyrs' like Malik.

After the Trinamool Congress government took charge of the state after 34 years of hegemony of the Left Front, it was Banerjee who took the initiative and two copper-coloured busts of Tapasi Malik and Rajkumar Bhul were constructed near the New Ujjwal Sangha Club in Bajemelia.

The latter was killed in September 2006, when he jumped into a pond to escape the police.

Malik was a member of Save Singur Farmland committee, whose charred remains were recovered from the Tata Motors' Nano factory site in Singur on December 18, galvanising the protests against the factory.

Singur had witnessed large-scale protests in 2006, when the CPI-M-led Left Front had tried to acquire land for the factory. The agitation that lasted for months, made headlines across the world and catapulted the then Opposition leader Banerjee to the limelight.

The villages of Beraberi, Bajemelia, Khaserbheri, and Gopalnagar were hubs of the anti-acquisition movement.