Singur murder: CPI-M calls for bandh

New Delhi: The CPI-M's 12-hour bandh in West Bengal paralyses one of the busiest road links of the state in protest against two party workers' police remand in Tapasi Mallick rape case.

CPI-M activists have called a 12-hour bandh on Saturday in Singur. This is in protest of party workers Suhrit Dutta and Debu Mallick being sent to 14-day police remand.

The CBI had earlier arrested the two on charges of murdering Tapasi Mallick.

The Durgapur Expressway, one of the busiest links used by trucks, has a deserted look. Thousands of trucks are stuck, as cadres are not allowing vehicles to ply.

Cadres are also not allowing work inside the Tata small car factory. The CPI-M is calling the arrests an Opposition conspiracy to tarnish the government's image.

Tapasi Malik, 19, was murdered at the height of the Singur agitation last December.

The CBI has now confirmed that a CPI-M activist murdered her. Tapasi, who was fighting against farmland acquisition, was found dead on December 18 from the area fenced off for the proposed Tata small car plant.

The death immediately took a political dimension. Triamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who was then on a hunger strike against farmland acquisition in Singur, demanded a CBI probe. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya conceded a day later

The CBI last week arrested CPI-M activist Debu Malik, a resident of Singur, in connection with the murder after he failed to clear a polygraph test in Delhi. Debu has now allegedly confessed to the charges before a court.

Sources in CBI say that some more CPI-M leaders in Singur will be arrested very soon. Surhid Dutta, the party’s zonal committee head in Singur, Dibakar Das, district committee member, party supporters Santosh Malik, Mahadeb Kolay and Manik Santra and Debu's cousin Joydeb Malik

The CBI has started interrogating four of them in Kolkata. At Singur, Tapasi's parents are happy that their daughter's killer is finally behind bars.

While the CPI-M was distancing itself from Debu Malik, the imminent arrest of some more party workers could give the opposition fresh ammunition against Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's government.