A student puts her name on the pages of protest at the candle-light vigil for justice in the Rizwanur Rahman death case. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Keep the candle burning for Rizwan was the slogan raised on the pavement outside St Xavier’s College on the evening of September 28.

Seven nights later, the candle is burning bright for Rizwanur Rahman on Park Street, 18 hours every day.

“The candle-light vigil is growing into a unique people’s movement,” say Mudar and Shalini Patherya, a Muslim-Hindu couple at the epicentre of the silent protest.

Close to 10,000 signatures of support are scrawled over giant posters and protest pages, demanding justice for the young man who was found dead under mysterious circumstances on September 21.

The student turnout — as volunteers sitting amidst the candles or just stopping by between classes — reflects how the tragic love story of Rizwanur, 30, and Priyanka, 23, has touched a chord among the city’s youth.

“We represent the Rang De Basanti generation — we will oppose injustice and force change,” said Kunal Banerjee, a young techie.

The number of people pausing on way to work and cars pulling up on way home is growing by the day. Families and individuals stop by till late at night to light a candle and often to leave some food and water for those sitting on vigil.

“We want to express solidarity with what the city essentially is — inclusive, tolerant and intrinsically humane. The Rizwanur case is everything that Calcutta is not,” says Bonani Kakkar, president of PUBLIC.

Support for the protest movement on the Park Street pavement — demanding action against the guilty and a CBI probe — has bridged every divide.

“The rich and powerful must not have a licence to influence the police. The essence of our participation in the vigil lies in raising a voice against injustice,” stresses Eugene Gonzalvez, the president of the Catholic Association of Bengal.

While most of those who keep the candles burning never knew Rizwanur, there are some who pause in front of his smiling photograph and remember him fondly.

“I often wonder who these people are who light these candles and keep a vigil. Are they his relatives or his friends? They are just people who sympathise with the cause of justice for Rizwan,” says Shukla Ray, head of the history department in Xaviers, who knew Rizwanur as “a soft-spoken and courteous student”.

Many who pause to scribble a message on a vinyl poster are not so soft-spoken about the manner in which the “guilty are being shielded” through “a farcical CID probe and a blatant cover-up job”.

Says a volunteer on a six-hour vigil late on Friday: “If the Todis and the police can get away with murder, our faith in the system will be shattered. If the chief minister has any humanity left in him, he must act at once.”

(Those wanting to volunteer for the candle-light vigil can call 9874304494 or e-mail justizforriz@gmail.com