Mamata remembers Tapashi Mallick on her death anniversary

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday remembered Tapashi Mallick, who was raped and then burnt alive by goons allegedly close to CPI(M), during the movement to resist acquisition of farmland in Singur in 2006.

On Tapashi's death anniversary, Banerjee tweeted: "Today is Tapashi Mallick's death anniversary. She was raped and burnt alive during the farmer movement in 2006. I pay respect to the martyrs who had been killed during the 34 years of Left rule."

The brutal killing of Mallick had accelerated the farmer movement in Singur, which was organised to oppose acquisition of farmland by the former state government to set up an automobile factory.

Intellectuals including poets, scholars and writers got united to support the movement led by Mamata Banerjee and the Singur movement became the Waterloo of Left Front rule in Bengal.

Later, the then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had confessed in an interview on a vernacular television channel that the decision to acquire farmland to set up the factory was wrong.

It may be mentioned that a tomb is coming up in Singur, where the names of all those who had laid down their lives during the farmer movement will be engraved. The incident in Singur has been included in the history syllabus in schools.

During the Left Front rule, hundreds of youths had been killed. In Netai, Nanur and Nandigram, helpless villagers were brutally killed by the goons appointed by Left Front, who had unleashed a reign of terror throughout Bengal.