Journalist Sudip Datta Bhowmik killed in Tripura: TSR commandant arrested, sent to police custody

Agartala: The commandant of the 2nd battalion of the Tripura State Rifles( TSR), Tapan Debbarma was arrested in connection with the killing of a journalist inside the battalion headquarters and remanded in police custody for ten days by a local court. [caption id=“attachment_4222939” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of slain journalist Sudip Datta Bhowmik. Facebook/ Sudip Datta Bhowmik[/caption] Superintendent of Police (Police Control), Harkumar Debbarna said the commandant of the counter-insurgency paramilitary force was arrested for conspiring to kill the scribe, Sudip Datta Bhowmik inside the battalion headquarters at Radhakishore Nagar. TSR constable Nandalal Reang, who allegedly shot dead the journalist and was arrested last night, was also sent to police custody for ten days. He and Debbarma were produced this monring before Chief Judical Magistrate Sharmishtha Mukherjee who passed the order. Bhowmik, a reporter of the local Bengali daily ‘Syandan Patrika’, was gunned down around 2 pm, West Tripura Superintendent of Police Abhijit Saptarshi said. He was the second scribe to be killed in the Northeastern state in two months. His body was taken in a procession by journalists and newspaper employees of the state after postmortem at the G B Hospital. The body was taken to the Agartala Press Club and the office of ‘Syandan Patrika’. Editors, journalists and senior politicians like Tripura BJP president Biplab Deb, BJP MLA Sudip Barman and CPM MP, Shankar Prasad Datta offered floral trib ute to the slain scribe. The procession stopped near the official residence of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and held a protest there alleging that the Left Front government has failed to provide safety and security to the journalists. The protesting journalists also burnt jackets which had been provided to them by the police for the purpose of identification. “We have burnt the jackets in protest against the government’s failure to provide security to us. Within two months, two journalists were killed. The chief minister is also the home minister of the state and he cannot evade the responsibility,” Pranab Sarkar, secretary of the Tripura Journalists Union told reporters. Editor of ‘Syandan Patrika’, Subal Kumar Dey alleged that Bhowmik was killed because he had exposed the many  misdeeds and corruption by the commandant. “It was a cold-blooded murder and Sudip was killed because he had written 11 news items exposing the commandant,” he added.