Agartala: The Council of Tiprasa Hoda (CTH), the apex body of indigenous communities of Tripura, on Tuesday asked Tripura Peoples’ Front (TPF) chief Patal Kanya Jamatia to unconditionally apologise on behalf of her cadres to royal scion and TIPRA Motha chief Pradyot Kishore Debbarman for heckling and abusing him at ADC headquarters Khumlung last week.
CTH is a statement alleged that Patal Kanya and her party TPF have been raising communal slogans against Bengalis, terming them ‘intruders’ from Bangladesh, while and TPF activists harassed Pradyot Kishore with abusive words ‘Debbarma Raja’, ‘Bangladeshi Raja’ ‘Bubagra (king) go back. It also claimed that the ‘unruly’ TPF supporters touched Pradyot in presence of Patal Kanya.
Pradyot Kishore was seen crying after his harassment. With folded hands, he sought support from society for the development of the state.
“Unless Patal Kanya seeks apology in the next two days in public to royal scion she will be excluded from Tiprasa (indigenous tribal) society. In our tradition, Bubagra (king) is the supremo of all the indigenous communities and he has to be respected everywhere irrespective of caste, colour, community or creed, but TPF cadres have violated the social norm that set a bad precedence in the state,” it stated.
The CTH alleged by terming Pradyot Kishore as ‘Debbarma Raja’ TPF had attempted to instigate communal disharmony among the indigenous communities. Despite several clarifications, Patal Kanya has been consistently terming ‘Bengalis’ of Tripura as Bangladeshi migrants, which is not only ‘false’, but actually, a tool to create ‘disharmony’ in the state, the CTH statement said, warning her not to give any statement which could trigger tension.
“Not only Bengalis, even the tribals who fled after creation of Bangladesh were also considered as illegal migrants and we have been persuading the government to take action against the intruders. There are a large number of Bengalis residing in Tripura since its accession to the Indian union in 1949. So, generalising all Bengalis as Bangladeshis are not correct and acceptable,” CTH leaders attributed.
According to police, a group of TPF supporters led by Patal Kanya Jamatia had suddenly gathered at Khumpui academy in the ADC headquarters for holding a rally without any permission when a friendly football match was going on. As they tried to forcibly stop the match for their unauthorised programme that created tension and a few people from both the groups were injured.
On coming to know about the disturbance, Debbarman went there to ease the situation. The TPF cadres then heckled Pradyot and assaulted him in public, creating ‘serious resentment’ across the
state among the communities, police added.
