SIT arrests two more security personnel

Tripura scribe's killing

Agartala, Nov 26: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was constituted by the Tripura government to probe the killing of a jourlist by a Tripura State Rifles (TSR) trooper, on Saturday arrested two more security personnel, police said.

“Following their investigation, the SIT arrested ib Subedar Amit Debbarma and TSR rifleman Dharmendra Singh, as they are found to be abettors and conspirators of the killing,” a police official said.

Police produced them in the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court here on Saturday and the court sent them to a seven-day police custody.

With the latest arrests, four security personnel, including TSR Second Battalion Commandant Tapan Debbarma, are in custody in connection with the gunning down of the jourlist within the battalion headquarters complex on Tuesday.

According to police, TSR Second Battalion Rifleman ndu Kumar Reang, following an altercation, shot dead local newspaper jourlist Sudip Datta Bhowmik, 50, at Radha Kishore gar, 25 km from Agartala.

Reang was the bodyguard of battalion Commandant Tapan Debbarma, who is a senior Tripura Police Service (TPS) officer (1998 batch). The slain jourlist had gone to meet Debbarma at the battalion headquarters.

The Press Council of India (PCI) has taken suo motu cognizance of the killing and sought a report from the Tripura government.

Demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident, several jourlist organisations under a newly-formed platform — Forum for Protection of Jourlists (FFPJ) — on Saturday took out a protest rally on Saturday.

FFPJ Convener Prab Sarkar said a memorandum would be sent to President Ram th Kovind demanding a CBI probe into the killing of the jourlist and protection to media persons..

Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy, who is now in Delhi, has said he would submit a report to Union Home Minister Rajth Singh on Bhowmik’s killing.

The Congress has demanded a high-level inquiry into the murder. The Bharatiya Jata Party (BJP) has demanded a CBI probe and resigtion of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, who also holds the Home portfolio. The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist has criticised the BJP for politicising the jourlist’s killing. (IANS)