AGARTALA: After sending five Trinamool workers to jail custody in connection with the case filed by the BJP against 20 accused, including West Bengal’s TMC leaders Debangshu Bhattacharya, Sudip Raha and Jaya Datta, police in a pre-dawn raid arrested Debangshu’s driver on Thursday from the western outskirts of Agartala.
The driver has been identified as Surajit Sutradhar.
Two days ago, the police arrested five accused from Ambassa and booked them under sections 120 B, 307, 326, 392 and 427 of IPC. A local court sent them to a weeklong judicial custody.
Since 12 of the accused in the case are in Kolkata, state police have reportedly alerted the airport to detain them as soon as they land in Agartala. Sources said Tripura police have also decided to send a team to Kolkata to arrest the 12 bring them back to Agartala on transit remand, which has triggered fear among the local workers.
Sources said although Trinamool Congress workers were injured in stone and brick pelting allegedly by BJP supporters in Ambassa on August 7 on the national highway and claimed that they were denied medical care in the police station, no complaint has yet been registered against BJP workers.
Trinamool Congress leader Ashis Lal Singh, however, alleged that despite lodging complaints against BJP workers soon after the attack, police did not register the FIR. Instead, he said TMC leaders were implicated in false cases following pressure from the top-level of the BJP. “We know how the police work under the Biplab Kumar Deb government. The police are being pressured to arrest as many as 40 of us on serious charges and putting us behind bars for at least three months.”
Meanwhile, the police raided the homes of TMC workers, including that of Singh and others who have been on the run for the last three days.
