AMID suffocating atmosphere prevailing in the state, where democratic movements are meted with repression, the people of Tripura have once again shaken the state with the slogan “BJP Hatao, DeshBachao”  on August 9, 2021. In response to the call of the joint forum of central trade unions and SamjuktaKishanMorcha, the programme was launched in the state jointly by several mass and class organisations namely AIKS, CITU, Agri workers union, Ganamukti Parishad, women’s, youth and students’ organisations. Protest demonstrations in the form of a human chain, procession and squatting etc., were held in 67 places throughout the state covering all the sub-divisions, both in plains and hills.

In many places, the participants had to face onslaughts of the ruling party goons and the police. The demonstrators were wearing placards demanding repeal of three black Agri-laws, anti-workers labour code, reduction of prices of petroleum products and essential commodities and protesting against privatisation of the electricity sector.

In Agartala, there was a huge human chain of about 4,000 people on the main road of the city where Polit Bureau Member, Manik Sarkar, Central Committee members, and available state committee members were among the prominent participants.

UNABATED TERROR, CPI(M) THE ONLY TARGET
A section of national media and a broad section of Kolkata and Agartala based media (both print and electronic) have rightly given wide coverage to the government’s vindictive attitude to the IPAC team and subsequently the violent attacks on the Trinamool Congress leaders by the Tripura police and the ruling party miscreants. CPI(M) condemned such undemocratic cowardly attacks on the TMC leaders at Ambassa and Dharmanagar on August 7. But what the biased media is trying to hide is the continuous state-sponsored terror even in the worst type of ferocity targeting the Left and particularly the CPI(M), the main opposition party in the state. Some of the pet media are as excited to highlight the attacks on TMC, similarly, they carefully blacked out attacks on CPI(M) that had been unleashed by the police and BJP goons since the inception of the BJP-IPFT government in March 2018. Therefore, it is pertinent to mention here some of the incidents of heinous attacks on the CPI(M) during the same period when high pitched propaganda was there with the attacks on TMC leaders.

On August 6, Ranjit Ghosh, a senior CPI(M) leader and a long time former secretary of the Kamalpur sub-divisional committee was attacked by the BJP miscreants in broad daylight when he was approaching towards Party local committee office at Kamalpur town. While comrades were trying to rescue him from the clutches of the attackers, 10 other comrades were severely wounded. Ranjit Ghosh was hit on the head. He is now under treatment in Tripura Medical College Hospital, Agartala. He had 14 stitches on his head and his hand and one of his backbones got fractured. The auto-rickshaw which Ranjit Ghosh was on board, was burnt down. The attack was carried on by the BJP’s known activists. Last April, he meted with a similar attack while distributing relief materials to the people at Paan Bua of Kamalpur sub-division. Though FIRs were lodged in both the attacks, till now none is arrested. 

On August 7, at about 10 pm, CPI(M) Kamalpur sub-divisional office at Manikbhnader was set on fire by the BJP miscreants. This office was closed in March 2018 due to terror. The ruling party miscreants spread petrol inside the office and left ablaze. The firemen came late when the ground floor was completely gutted by that time. They doused the fire and went back. Within one hour the same gang of miscreants again came and set ablaze the 1st floor of the office by spreading petrol. The office was completely burnt down. Earlier also this office was attacked several times and many comrades were physically attacked inside the office. Except for few media, large sections of them either blacked out both the incidents or published casually.

On July 8, 2021, the day when Pratima Bhowmik, an MP from Tripura was sworn as a minister of state in the union cabinet, the event was celebrated by the BJP workers by gutting down two CPI(M) offices, one at Kathalia near the native house of Smt. Bhowmik and the other are situated at Bar Narayan, a little distant from her house in the Sonamura sub-division. Jubilating BJP workers committed arson in front of many people in the market. 

Neither Smt. Bhowmik, nor BJP nor any media did raise a question, was this the manner of celebration? 

On June 6, 2021, Manoj Deb, a cabinet minister hailing from Kamalpur had physically led a gang of miscreants in attacking no less than nine houses of the CPI(M) leaders and workers in Kamalpur town and adjoining areas. The minister himself directed his gang-star followers pointing outhouses that were to be raided, vandalised and looted. And the miscreants boastfully carried out the direction of the minister. No Media, however, did ever raise the question, how Manoj Deb could continue in the cabinet.  

On August 7, three other CPI(M) branch offices, one at Rajnagar of Belonia sub-division and the other at KobraKhamar in
Jirania sub-division was set on fire by the BJP miscreants.

On August 4, 2021, the dead body of Pradip Nama, a CPI(M) activist was recovered from a thin bush near his house at Gandhigram of Mohanpur sub-division, West Tripura. The body had clotted blood in several parts. He was missing since the previous day. With this murder, CPI(M) lost 21 leaders and cadres during the BJP-IPFT regime in March 2018. Expectedly, as the victims were of CPI(M), the police treated all the cases indulgently and there was no arrest of any assassin in any case. No media, however, raise the question, why all these murder cases were left uninvestigated by the police for such a long time.

GENERAL LAW AND ORDER SITUATION

The partisanship showed by the police towards the ruling parties and leniency on the cases filed by the CPI(M) has caused deterioration of the general law and order situation to an alarming extent. Murder, rape and gang rape, recovery of dead bodies, kidnapping, suicide, domestic violence and suicide etc., are common news in every day’s newspapers. Every day on average half a dozen incidents of murder, recovery of dead bodies and suicides take place.