High alert in Tripura after tribal party goes on rampage

Agartala, Sept 21: The Tripura government has sounded a high alert after a tribal party carried out a series of attacks in different parts of the state since Tuesday in which a 28-year-old jourlist was killed, officials said here on Thursday.

Since Tuesday, prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Crimil Procedure (CrPC) have been promulgated in more than 10 places of west Tripura and Khowai districts, including violence-hit Mandai, 35 km north of here.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Thursday held a high level review meeting with top officials of Assam Rifles, Border Security Force, Tripura State Rifles and Tripura Police. The situation was more or less normal in most places on Thursday, a senior official of the state Home Department said. He said that the Chief Minister, who also holds the home portfolio, asked Director General of Police Akhil Kumar Shukla to supervise and monitor the situation round-the-clock.

According to police, members of the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), a tribal-based opposition party, intermittently attacked the security forces, houses and burnt down some vehicles the entire day till late Wednesday — fuelling ethnic trouble in mixed populated areas. “Police resorted to lathicharge and dispersed the mob in Mandai and other places as they assembled there violating the prohibitory orders,” a police officer said.

“The IPFT members brutally killed young jourlist Shantanu Bhowmik during the melee. Police later recovered his body and brought it to government-run Govind Ballabh Pant Medical College and Hospital.” Wednesday’s incident at Mandai was an upshot of Tuesday’s series of violent attacks across the state.

On Tuesday, over 60 members of the ruling CPI-M’s tribal wing Tripura Rajya Upajati Gamukti Parishad (TRUGP) were injured in separate attacks allegedly by rival IPFT cadres at 12 places.

TRUGP President Jitendra Chowdhury said: “The IPFT members attacked the TRUGP men and women when the latter were coming in vehicles to Agartala from different places in Tripura to attend a party rally here.” The IPFT cadres also burnt down several buses in which the TRUGP men were travelling, though no one was injured.

Deputy Inspector General of police Arindam th said that so far 11 IPFT members have been arrested from separate places for their involvement in the attacks. A 12-hour shut down, called by the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Thursday to protest the IPFT’s violent attacks crippled life in Jirania sub-division in western Tripura. (IANS)