Agartala: Tension spread to Gomati district of South Tripura today following counter-attack by CPI-M on BJP allegedly preventing leader of the opposition Manik Sarkar from visiting his constituency Dhanpur in Sepahijala on Sept 6 last.
The CPI-M alleged that BJP cadres have assaulted at least 30 of their supporters and carried out mass attacks on them in the last two days across five constituencies of Gomati and Sepahijala districts. The CPI-M alleged that BJP cadres have set the house of renowned advocate Ranadhir Debnath who is also a CPI-M worker on fire with an intention to burn the family members alive last night in Shalgara, the border of Sonamura and Udaipur.
A 70 -yrs old lady of the family was suffering from about 70 percent burn injuries and shifted to Agartala Govt Medical College. The BJP workers allegedly attacked at least 32 houses of CPI-M workers last night in different places of Gomati district and left a large number of people injured.
The senior CPI-M leader Subhas Deb, a member of party’s Sonamura sub-divisional committee was assaulted badly and his head, waist and legs were broken after storming his house in Bhawanipur area of Sonamura last night, alleged CPI-M leader Madhab Saha adding, “The violence started after newly appointed information minister Sushanta Chowdhury and union minister Pratima Bhowmik issued open threat of attacks on CPI-M workers.”
Meanwhile, BJP protested the incident and attack on their workers by CPI-M in Dhanpur and the rally was addressed by Union Minister of state Pratima Bhowmik along with other party leaders. She accused Sarkar of instigating violence to capture power from the back door and urged the workers to resist the communist for peace and development.
When BJP was protesting in Dhanpur, a 43 yrs old BJP supporter identified as Mofez Mia was assaulted allegedly by CPM workers in Udaipur town. The CPI-M has been protesting the attacks on their supporters in last two days and suddenly found Mofez Mia in front of them and he was beaten up badly. Mofez was shifted to medical college here in critical condition.
The BJP workers in Gomati and Sepahijala districts have been blocking all the entry and exit points of Udaipur, which disrupted vehicular movement on the national highway in South Tripura since afternoon. The police said extra deployment has been made in Udaipur and surrounding areas to cease the tension.
Following demand from BJP, Tripura government has closed the additional SP of Sepahijala Joytishman Daschoudhury to police headwaters last night and posted another Tripura Police Service cadre Ranadhir Debbarma in his post. The BJP alleged that police had helped CPI-M cadres and didn’t stop their attacks on Sept 6 where Daschoudhury was in command.
On that day, at least seven people from both sides were injured in the incident and BJP alleged that Sarkar himself led the violence on their supporters who had sat in demonstration seeking punishment of Manik Sarkar for encouraging Rose Valley and other ponzi firms during the left regime. But, CPI-M cadres made a violent attack on them and left at least five persons including two old men badly injured.
The CPI-M had alleged that BJP workers prevented the convoy of Sarkar and tried to harm him physically in presence of police. Finally, they resorted to counter attack for self defense and BJP workers fled away. The party lodged a complaint against three top BJP leaders but police did not take any action.
