Clash & Murder - What is the Difference?

Letter to Speaker on Tah obituary

Burdwan, May 6: The widow of Pradip Tah, the former CPM MLA murdered by alleged Trinamul supporters in Burdwan in February, has written to the Speaker objecting to the Assembly obituary that said her husband was killed in a “clash”

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In the letter to Biman Banerjee, Chitralekha Tah urged him to make a “correction” in the obituary reference, saying it did not indicate the “true state of affairs” about her husband’s death.

“I desire to inform you that no incident of clash happened… my husband was brutally murdered by some Trinamul Congress workers who, earlier in the morning, had attacked our house…. I think the statement does not reveal the true state of affairs about the death of my husband…. I hope you will be kind enough to correct the word (clash),” the letter, dated May 4, said.

Tah’s obituary was placed in the Assembly on March 16. It said: “Shri Pradip Tah, former member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, breathed his last on 22nd February, 2012, in an incident of clash at Dewandighi.”

A copy of the obituary was sent to Chitralekha earlier this month.

“I have requested the Speaker to make the necessary correction in the obituary of my husband by dropping the word ‘clash’. It was placed in the Assembly on March 16 and (a copy) reached me on May 1,” Chitralekha said.

“How could the obituary say my husband was killed in a clash when his murder was pre-planned?”

Speaker Banerjee today denied having received any such letter from Tah’s widow.

“I cannot comment on a letter I have not received. Let the letter reach me first, only then shall I be able to comment on it,” he said.

The Speaker, however, said the obituary reference could not be altered.

“I just sent her a copy of the obituary reference read out in the Assembly about the former MLA’s death, and the statement cannot be altered at any cost,” he said.

Calcutta High Court had on March 2 described the police probe into the murder of Tah and Burdwan CPM leader Kamal Gayen as “not satisfactory” and handed the case over to the CID.