KOLKATA: A neglected memorial (shahid bedi) in front of
Bhabani Dutta Lane
commemorating the deaths of nine young Naxalites, is getting a new lease of life with a group of people taking the initiative to restore it to its old glory.
Members of the group are mostly people who were once associated with the movement. They have crowd-sourced for the renovation that will take place on Saturday.
The memorial commemorates the sacrifices of Bidhu Sarkar, Anup Bhons, Kesto Sanyal,
Shanku Dutta
, Sukumar Bhattacharya, Gobindo Chakraborty, Shekhar Guha, Shankar Das and Samir Bhowmik.
Writer
Supriyo Chowdhury
, during one of his recent visits to College Street, felt extremely sad to find out the unkempt condition of the memorial. He wrote about it on
Facebook and appealed to people for its restoration.
“The stories of these nine youths are not found in textbooks. So there is an urgent need to renovate this memorial, which brings back memories of Calcutta during the seventies,” said Chowdhury.
Sunish Deb
, retired public servant, recalled one of the most shocking incidents of his life. “On October 28, 1970, I went to meet
Sukumar-da
. We were talking when some policemen arrested me. I got the news of his death while they were taking me to a police station. It was unbelievable that the person whom I met a few minutes ago was murdered,” said Deb.
Sajal Mitra, who was an active member of Naxalite movement, fears that with the passing of a generation that had the first-hand experience of the horrors of state atrocities, there will be no one to recount these tales of precious sacrifices. They will be lost forever.
Sumit Chowdhury, another member of the group, said the initiative has been taken to reassert the unstructured history that are available on the streets itself. He added that many people from the older generation to the present generation will be present on Saturday for the renovation of the memorial.
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