UNDER SIEGE: Tipu Sultan’s family cemetery on Satish Mukherjee Road. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

After declaring the cemetery where Tipu Sultan’s family is buried a heritage site, the state government is planning to renovate it. The 20-bigha cemetery is on Satish Mukherjee Road, behind the Kalighat booster pumping station.

The chief minister gave his nod to the project last month and called for removal of settlers from the site, said an official of the state minorities development and welfare department.

A library in Tipu’s name is likely to be set up there.

Principal secretary of the department N.R. Banerjee has written to police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee (a copy of the letter is with Metro) requesting him to remove encroachments on the graveyard.

“It has been reported that for quite some time, the heritage burial ground has been encroached on by trespassers and undesirable elements who have desecrated the place. It is a den of anti-socials and criminals. I request you to take necessary steps to remove the encroachment expeditiously and to ensure that the heritage site is free from trespassers and squatters,” the letter stated.

The cemetery came up after 1805, when the British shifted Tipu’s family to Calcutta from Vellore. Tipu had died at Seringapatnam in 1799. All 12 sons of the sultan and other members of his family were buried in the cemetery.

CPM parliamentarian Mohammad Salim said the government has discussed with Calcutta Municipal Corporation how to convert the site into a garden.

Anwar Ali Shah, a direct descendent of Tipu Sultan and president of Mysore Family Fateha Fund Committee, and Shahid Alam, secretary of the committee, welcomed the move. “It’s very sad that the cemetery has become home to illegal settlers and a haven of criminals,” said Alam.

“Criminals have built houses on the burial ground and even rented them out. The police and the civic body did nothing to remove them,” said Shah.

Police blamed both the CPM and the Trinamul Congress for resisting eviction drives. “The illegal settlers constitute the vote bank of political parties and enjoy their support. Criminals have been arrested from the cemetery,” said a senior officer at Lalbazar.

“We have been living here for decades and the government has to make arrangements before evicting us,” asserted one of the encroachers.