By Indo-Asian News Service
Kolkata: Debu Malik, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) supporter arrested for allegedly killing Singur girl Tapasi Malik in December last year, has been brought to Kolkata from New Delhi by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to be produced in a district court in West Bengal.
Though CBI sources in Kolkata remained tight-lipped, reports in the electronic media said Malik was still being interrogated and would be produced in Chandannagore court of Hooghly district any time Thursday.
The accused was brought to the city Wednesday night.
Reports said a CPI-M zonal committee leader of Singur, where the farmers are resisting acquisition of their land for the Tata Motors small car project, has been summoned by the CBI to their Salt Lake office in Kolkata.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Tuesday said the guilty in Tapasi Malik’s killing would be punished irrespective of party affiliation.
“We would want (the) law to take its course in the Tapasi Malik case and the CBI to reach its logical conclusion in the case fast. The guilty should be punished irrespective of party affiliation,” Bhattacharya told reporters.
The CBI had taken Debu Malik of Singur into custody as prime accused in the death of Tapasi Malik, whose charred body was recovered Dec 18 from the area fenced off for the upcoming small car plant. He was taken to Delhi for a lie-detector test and later arrested.
The CPI-M has, however, been quick to identify Debu as a supporter and not a party member.
Debu was produced in a New Delhi court Sunday for allegedly killing the 18-year-old girl, a member of the anti-land acquisition group Singur Krishijami Raksha Committee (Save Farmland Committee), and then burning her body inside the fenced off area, about 40 km from Kolkata in Hooghly district. Her family members had lost their land to the project. Tapasi may have been raped before she was killed.
The Trinamool Congress’ campaign against the Tata Motors project has got a boost with the arrest of a CPI-M man for the killing of the girl and party chief Mamata Banerjee has lambasted the CPI-M on the issue.
Debu was in charge of the guards protecting the boundary wall in Singur at night.
Tapasi, from Bajemelia village in Singur, was an active member of the Save Farmland Committee that was protesting land acquisition in the area for the motor project.
Over 997 acres of land in Singur have been chosen by Tata Motors for its small car project. The issue has triggered a violent face-off between the government and farmers led by civil society groups and parties like the Trinamool Congress.