As ugly as it gets

Sir — Benoy Konar, the acting state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has claimed that the arrest of party leaders Suhrid Dutta and Dibakar Das, in connection with the murder of Tapasi Malik is the result of the Central Bureau of Investigation “acting with a motive”, and that the CBI has framed Dutta “in order to malign the party”. These remarks raise a fundamental question: what can the CBI gain by arresting CPI(M) leaders? The CBI is not a political party, and is unlikely to be coerced or purchased, particularly since the government at the Centre is among the CPI(M)’s best friends. The question of the CBI being purchased does not arise, since the CPI(M) is far richer than either the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee or the Trinamool Congress. No wonder the comrades are beginning to get agitated.

Yours faithfully,
Asoke C. Banerjee,
Calcutta

Sir — As tension grew after the murder of Tapasi Malik near the proposed Tata Motors site in Singur, the chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, ordered a CBI probe to quell the public outrage. Tapasi Malik, an ordinary 18-year-old village girl, met a gruesome end for raising her voice against the forced acquisition of arable land by the state government in her village. With its usual organizational efficiency, the CPI(M) tried to pass it off as suicide. When the CBI unearthed the truth, implicating a party heavyweight in the murder, party leaders became suspicious over the role of the investigating team. But they could not point an accusing finger at the Centre, it being a ‘friendly’ one. It is unfortunate that the party has more sympathy for the alleged masterminds of the murder than for the murdered girl. This sends the message that anyone who dares to defy the authority of the CPI(M) in the state will face Tapasi Malik’s fate. It also indicates that administrative and judicial machinery is redundant in the state.

The CBI’s investigation is based on scientifically authenticated polygraph test (“Truth test for CPM leader”, June 30). How dare the comrades cast aspersion on the findings? Given the gruesomeness of the murder, the guilty deserve to be sent to the gallows, whether they are CPI(M) leaders or not. Dhananjoy Chatterjee was given death sentence, with active support from Bhattacharjee, for raping and murdering a young girl, Hetal Parekh. The only difference of this crime with Tapasi Malik’s rape and murder is that Hetal hailed from an affluent family, while Tapasi’s parents are poor farmers. Also, Dhananjoy Chatterjee did not owe allegiance to the ruling party of the state. Does this mean that Tapasi Malik’s death will go unavenged?

Yours faithfully,
Subhankar Mukherjee,
Burdwan

Sir — Thank god the CBI was asked to investigate Tapasi Malik’s murder. Or, the truth may never have been unearthed and the guilty punished. When Benoy Konar talks of the probe being politically motivated, he fails to see that the CPI(M) is getting a taste of its own medicine. All these years, the party has terrorized the villages of West Bengal and made the people toe the party line. Now that something has finally gone against them, the Marxist leaders are crying politicization. Not long ago, an investigating team caught red-handed 10 CPI(M) activists hiding in a brick kiln surrounded by lethal weapons. It is no secret that the police in West Bengal have become an instrument in the hands of the party in power. So, unless an independent agency like the CBI investigates, murders, rapes and other crimes committed by CPI(M) goons will not come to justice.

Yours faithfully,
A.K. Das Sharma,
Calcutta

Sir — The confession of Debu Malik on the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik, and the subsequent arrest of Suhrid Dutta, the secretary of the Singur zonal committee of the CPI(M), has put the party’s bigwigs in a spot. If the CBI pursues the case to the end, many more arrests are likely to follow. A lie detector and narco-analysis test conducted on Dutta might land many big fish in the CBI net. Will the CPI(M) and its chief minister, who had so far dismissed any political angle to the murder, eat their words now? True to CPI(M) tradition, however, Benoy Konar has come up with a theory of political victimization. Given where their political strings are attached, it can be safely said that Suhrid Dutta and Debu Malik would not be named by the CBI if there were no clinching evidence against the two. Legally speaking, Debu Malik’s confession, made as it was before a magistrate, will not be admissible under the Indian Evidence Act. As we have seen in the high-profile Best Bakery case of Gujarat, plans must be afoot to pressurize and threaten Debu Malik into changing his statement.

Given the political activism over Singur and Nadigram, the murder of Tapasi Malik has become much more high-profile that it would otherwise have been. But what about the thousands of other murders and rapes committed by the CPI(M) cadre all over Bengal? The culprits in many of these cases are roaming free. The role of Tata Motors officials should also be probed as part of the investigation. History, both national and international, has several instances of powerful industrial lobbies hiring killers to remove human obstacles from their paths.

Yours faithfully,
Tapan Das Gupta,
Madhabpur, Burdwan

Sir — Clearly, Debu Malik is dispensable but Suhrid Dutta is not. The same CPI(M) machinery, which is now working overtime to build conspiracy theories around the arrest of Dutta, is silent on the naming of Debu Malik, who is nowhere close to Dutta in the party hierarchy. But the findings suggest that it was Dutta who had hired Debu Malik and three others to kill Tapasi Malik. But then, there are so many cases where the masterminds go scot-free, while the smaller fry are convicted.

Yours faithfully,
S.N. Paul,
Calcutta