Darjeeling unrest: Tripura tribal party holds protests backing Gorkhaland agitation

Agartala: A Tripura tribal party organised rallies in 29 places across the state on Saturday to support the demand for a separate Gorkhaland state in West Bengal’s Darjeeling. [caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Gorkhaland protest. AFP[/caption] Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), a tribal based party in Left-ruled Tripura, held rallies and protest demonstrations in 29 places under the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) areas. “We not only support the separate Gorkhaland state in West Bengal, we also strongly condemn the atrocities on the leaders and members of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM),” IPFT President Narendra Chandra Debbarma told reporters in Agartala. The IPFT has for the past few years been agitating for the creation of a separate state, carved out by upgrading the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) area. The TTAADC was formed in 1987 under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to protect and safeguard the political, economic and cultural interests of the tribals. The IPFT has announced blockading of National Highway-8 and the rail tracks for an indefinite period from 10 July in support of their demand. NH-8 maintains the surface connection between the land-locked state and the rest of the country through Assam. The politically-important TTAADC constitutes two-third of Tripura’s 10,491 sq km area and 1,216,465 (mostly tribals) of the state’s total 37 lakh population reside in the areas. Almost all the political parties in Tripura have opposed the IPFT’s demand for a separate state.