Within two weeks of taking over the investigations into the brutal killing of two journalists – Sudip Dutta Bhowmik and Santanu Bhowmick – in Tripura last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) lodged FIR against three leaders and 300-500 unidentified members of the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT). IPFT is the alliance partner of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government Tripura.
The central agency has registered a case against Balram Deb Barma, Dhirendra Deb Barma and Amit Deb Barma, the latter president of the Mandai divisional committee of IPFT.
Santanu Bhowmick was murdered while covering clashes between IPFT Tripura Upajati Gan Mukti Parishad (TUGMP), the tribal wing of then-ruling party Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) for a local television channel on September 21 last year.
Three months later on November 20, a crime reporter with a vernacular newspaper Sudip Dutta Bhowmick was murdered inside headquarters of the Tripura State Rifles’ (TSR) 2nd battalion in the same district.
A Special Investigating Team (SIT) had probed both cases and filed chargesheet in the Sudip Dutta Bhowmick murder case. However, SIT’s inability to file chargesheet in Santanu Bhwomick’s killing prompted his father to seek CBI investigation.
