AGARTALA: Tripura Police on Friday released photographs of 28 people who were allegedly involved in Tuesday’s arson in Agartala during a rally of Indigenous People’s Front of Twipra (IPFT).
SP, West Tripura district, Abhijit Saptarshi has appealed to the people to identify the persons against whom charges under various Sections of IPC have been registered in different police stations.
Amid exchange of allegations between the ruling CPM and IPFT over the clash, panic has gripped tribals and non-tribals alike in the past three days.
Tribal students, professionals and workers have started retreating to their villages and their presence in local markets, offices, schools, colleges and universities in the city have thinned out.
IPFT had alleged that the rally was proceeding peacefully before some non-tribals attacked it in a few places, provoking the IPFT supporters to retaliate. Chief minister Manik Sarkar and his party denied the claims, holding the tribal party responsible for resorting to violence without any provocation to break the communal harmony.
Sarkar said the state government had ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident, but TMC and IPFT were pressing for an inquiry by a sitting high court judge. BJP and Twipra Students’ Federation (TSF), a tribal students’ organization, on the other hand, have said CBI or any other national agency should handle the case.
CPM is facing accusations of attacking the IPFT members. The party in power is trying to take the advantage of the tribals’ demand for a separate state and not just Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council.
BJP state president Biplab Deb on Friday urged the Left Front government to convene an all-party meeting to contain the situation and resume normality, amid increasing reports of tribals fleeing the urban areas.
“More than 10,000 students and an equal number of professionals from the tribal community have been residing in Agartala and its outskirts peacefully for over a decade now. People from the community sell fish and vegetables in five markets in the state capital. But almost all them have returned and markets wear a deserted look now. The state government has failed to hold them back,” Deb alleged.
Source: Times of India
