Konar targets Tapasi Malik’s father

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=8444188832364&id=180879

Rajib Chatterjee
DANKUNI (Hooghly), Dec. 16: He is a firebrand Marxist known to target his political rivals with epithets which other politicians would prefer to avoid for fear of being criticised. Perhaps, for the first time, he has openly targeted a poor man of Singur who has practically nothing to do with politics.
The Marxist in question is the CPI-M’s central committee member, Mr Benoy Konar, and the person he has targeted is Mr Manoranjan Malik, father of Tapasi Malik, who had to pay with her life for being courageous enough to participate in the anti-land acquisition movement at Singur.
The only offence of Mr Malik is that he has been running from pillar to post demanding punishment for his daughter’s killers.
While addressing a CPI-M rally at Dankuni in Hooghly, Mr Konar said that Tapasi’s father was “cashing in on” his daughter’s death. “Tapasi was a burden for her father when she was alive. Her father had failed to arrange money for her education. Tapasi’s father has now become a renowned person in the state and he now owns a mobile phone. He has been cashing in on his daughter’s death,” he said.
“Earlier, Tapasi’s father would sell fish at a market in Chinsurah. He had no agricultural plots. Tapasi was a burden on him because she was unmarried. But now he is touring several places in the country. It seems money can buy even conscience and ethics,” added Mr Konar.
The CPI-M central committee member, however, paid token homage to Tapasi by merely describing her death as “tragic and unfortunate”. “However, I still do not know whether she was murdered or she committed suicide,” he said.
While some elderly CPI-M supporters, who had gathered at the rally, condemned Mr Konar for his remarks against Tapasi’s father, the young cadre cheered their leader for his bold stand.