The bridge is named after a Bengali engineer Bijon Basu. 35 year old Basu was an executive engineer of then Calcutta Improvement Trust.[2] On 2 August 1974, while he was returning home from Santoshpur to Sealdah, a gang of robbers got on the train and looted passengers. Basu protested but the robbers stabbed him and threw him out from the running train beside Ballygunge railway station.[3][4] The bridge was established in 1978.[5][6]
16 monks and one nun of a Hindu organization Ananda Marga religious sect were lynched and burnt alive near Bijon Setu in the morning of 30 April 1982.[7] This incident was called as Bijon Setu massacre.[8][9]
