Tripura scribes demand CBI probe into colleagues' murder, to move PM

The team also plans to hold a demonstration in Delhi on Tuesday in front of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) office, Forum for Protection of Jourlists (FFPJ) Convener Prab Sarkar said.

The FFPJ delegation - led by veteran editor Subal Kumar Dey - would also try to meet President Ram th Kovind, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Press Council of India Chairman Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad to press for their demand.

“After a series of agitations in Tripura we came to the tiol capital to press for our demand to protect the media persons in Tripura,” Sarkar added.

A local newspaper jourlist Sudip Dutta Bhowmik, 50, was shot dead inside the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) 2nd battalion headquarters at Ramchandra gar in West Tripura district on November 21.

Young television jourlist Santanu Bhowmik, 28, was hacked to death while he was covering protests of a tribal based political party at Mandai, 25 km from Agartala, on September 20.

PCI chairman, who is likely to visit the state to study both the incidents, took suo-moto cognizance of the jourlists murder cases.

To probe the sensatiol killings, the state government had earlier constituted two separate Special Investigation Teams (SIT) headed by Deputy Inspector General of Police Arindam th and Inspector General of Police (IGP) G.S. Rao.

The SIT, led by th, has so far arrested four TSR personnel, including TSR second battalion Commandant Tapan Debbarma, who is a senior Tripura Police Service (TPS) officer (1998 batch) and waiting for IPS nomition.

In the Bhowmik murder case too, the SIT led by IGP Rao also arrested four youths.

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. 

Both parties observed a state-wide shutdown on November 23 to protest the killings.

The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has criticised the BJP for politicising the jourlist’s killing.

“State government is on the right track in probing the unfortute killings,” CPI-M central committee member Gautam Das told the media. (IANS)