A group of troublemakers reportedly attacked Opposition leader Manik Sarkar and other CPI-M MLAs, in Santirbazar area of South Tripura district on May 10, 2021(Monday).
Sarkar was along with deputy opposition leader Badal Choudhury and others. They were heading to meet their party supporters, who also experienced similar attacks, when suddenly hundreds of people attacked their convoy in presence of Tripura police personnel.
Ex-CM of Tripura Manik Sarkar(1998-2018), said that troublemakers carried out an array of attacks as per instructed by the state leadership.
Sarkar said, “The state leadership is instigating the miscreants to carry out attacks on the opposition leaders. The people will keep doing such incidents and they will not forget all this in future. The way we are being targeted is unacceptable”.
“If my blood and life can reinstall peace, prosperity, democracy, law and order in the state, I would not feel sad. But I would still demand for peace and democracy. This has to be stopped and it cannot continue this way”, Sarkar added.
Sarkar said, “We saw that the youths, who were raising slogans, tried to stop the cars. The police officers requested us to come out of the vehicle and we started walking to reach the houses of our supporters. The Santirbazar police station officer in-charge requested us to return as we could not drive further due to the law and order situation”.
After police urged them not to move ahead the leaders decided to return, he said.
“They started pelting stones, bricks, bats, eggs and water bottles when I told the people not to attack the policemen. We did not see any higher authority meeting us on the spot even though we wrote a letter to the director general of police (DGP) informing him about our travel plan. Even in the past, we were stopped by the police from meeting the people and our supporters,” Sarkar added.
The senior officers were held accountable by Sarkar for not taking necessary steps and claimed presence of high-level officers on the spot. “We feel that instructions were not given from the headquarters to make the travel of the leaders smoother.”
Tripura law minister Ratan Lal Nath stated that the CPI-M leaders have intentionally created the problems claiming that the miscreants were CPI-M supporters in the past.
“The CPI-M had taken a lot money during its tenure from the youths assuring them job opportunities through the back door. Now, as they are moving in other parts, the old supporters are raising slogans against them,” Nath said.