AGARTALA: The death toll in the shooting incident in the Panisagar area of Tripura It increased to two on Sunday with a fire service employee succumbing to his injuries, a police officer said. Srikanta Das, 43, a carpenter who was among the protesters, was killed and at least 23 other people were injured when the police opened fire on the picketers, who had blocked the Assam-Agartala National Highway in Panisagar in the North Tripura district on Saturday, police said.
The protesters were protesting against a government plan to rehabilitate over 6,000 Brus in the Kanchanpur subdivision.
Biswajit Debbarma, a fire service personnel, who was injured by protesters and admitted to GBP Hospital with multiple trauma and head injuries died early Sunday, the New Capital Complex Subdivision Police Officer (SDPO) said. , Piya Madhuri Majumder.
Locally known as “Assam-Agartala Road”, the NH-8 is often called Tripura’s lifeline as it connects the state with the rest of the country.
The Joint Movement Committee (JMC), made up of Bengalis and local Mizos, had called an indefinite bandh in Kanchanpur and blocked the road on Saturday.
The problems began when a contingent of police and paramilitaries, including Tripura State Rifles (TSR), became involved in a fight with JMC activists after an altercation over the removal of the road blockade.
JMC coordinator Sushanta Baruah alleged that police personnel had opened fire on protesters “who were demonstrating peacefully”, while ADG Rajiv Singh said police were forced to shoot in self-defense as the crowd had been turned rebellious and had tried to snatch weapons from security personnel.
Meanwhile, JMC President Zairemthiama Pachuau said the indefinite strike, which entered its seventh day on Sunday, continues in Kanchanpur.
“The situation is calm, but tense. We are waiting to discuss the situation with a government delegation, made up of a minister and some MLA, which will probably take place here at 4 pm.”
“The Minister of State for Social Welfare, Shantana Chakma, informed us that the delegation is on its way from Agartala, about 200 km from here,” Pachuau said by phone.
The state government has ordered a judicial investigation into the police dismissal and announced compensation of 5 lakh rupees to the family of the deceased.
State Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath, who is also the cabinet spokesman, said the investigation would be carried out by North Tripura District Magistrate Nagesh Kumar and that he would present the report “within a month”.
Senior Minister Biplab Kumar Deb chaired a meeting with Senior Deputy Minister Jishnu Devbarma in the presence of Police Director General VS Yadav and Additional Police Director General Rajiv Singh and assessed the situation on Saturday night, he said. Nath to reporters here.
The Bru issue had started in September 1997 following demands for a separate autonomous district council dividing up areas of western Mizoram contiguous with Bangladesh and Tripura.
Around 30,000 members of the Bru tribe had fled Mizoram due to ethnic tension there and took refuge in refugee camps in Tripura.
The first attempt to repatriate the Brus was made in November 2009 by the Center together with the governments of Tripura and Mizoram.
However, the effort met with little success.
In January this year, a quadripartite agreement was signed between the Union Ministry of the Interior, the state governments of Mizoram and Tripura and the leaders of the Bru refugees to permanently settle the evacuees from Bru in Tripura.
The Center sanctioned Rs 600 crore as a rehabilitation package for the displaced Brus as a final solution to the 23-year mess.
The JMC president had recently told reporters that the North Tripura district magistrate had assured that 1,500 families would settle in the area.
“But now the government is trying to settle 6,000 families,” he said.
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