Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express her "deepest anguish" over vandalism of the ancestral house of Rabindranath Tagore at Sirajganj in Bangladesh and urged him to take up the issue with the Bangladesh government so that the perpetrators could be punished at the earliest.

"I am writing to express my deepest anguish over the incident of vandalisation of a historic ancestral house of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore in Sirajganj, Bangladesh. Tagore frequented the place repeatedly in his lifetime and many of his finest works were conceived or written while he was there.. What has been vandalised is not a mere house, but a towering fountain of creativity in our subcontinent," the chief minister wrote in her letter.

Mamata wrote that the vandalism was not only shocking but also unfortunate.

She wrote that for the people of Bengal, the attack was an onslaught on the legacy of Tagore.

"I would urge you to kindly take up the matter very strongly with the neighbouring country's government so that no stone is left unturned to swiftly bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous and mindless act. Although untold damage has already been done, a strong international protest would at least deter in future any attack on monuments of cultural legacies that have withstood steadfastly all tests of time," reads the letter.

Sources said that the chief minister wrote the letter to put pressure on the Centre as the BJP had already started playing politics on the issue.

As soon as the incident took place on June 12, the BJP national leadership started blaming the Muhammad Yunus government and alleged it was a pre-planned attack by radical groups in the neighbouring country.

"The chief minister did not want to leave an open field for the BJP on the issue and that was why she mounted pressure on the Centre to take up the issue with Bangladesh and punish the perpetrators," said a source.