Tripura violence: Four injured, 15 bikes and car gutted in CPM-BJP clash ahead of panchayat polls; residents desert village

Agartala: West Chandrapur village near the India-Bangladesh border in North Tripura district on Monday turned into a deserted rural hamlet as all the villagers shifted to elsewhere after a clash broke out between BJP and CPM supporters, police said. No one has been arrested or detained in the incident so far but police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in the village, said Milan Dutta, officer-in-charge of Dharmanagar police station. [caption id=“attachment_5873421” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Four persons were injured, 15 motor bikes and a car were gutted during the clash on Sunday, police said. “We went to the area for investigation, but not a single person was found in the village. They fled from the village immediately after the clash,” Dutta told reporters. He said residents might have taken shelter in neighbouring villages. The BJP Monday filed an FIR against 21 people for allegedly attacking their activists and supporters, when they had gone there on Sunday for campaign for the upcoming rural polls. Panchayat elections in the state would be held on 27 July for which filing of nominations began from 1 July. The saffron party blamed the CPM for the clash, while the Left party termed the allegations as “baseless”. Deputy Speaker of Tripura Assembly Biswabandhu Sen alleged that the BJP workers were attacked by the CPM workers during campaigning for the rural polls. He had claimed that four of his party supporters were seriously injured and shifted to Assam’s Silchar, about 150 kilometres from Dharmanagar, for treatment. Alleging that the BJP supporters were exerting pressure on CPI(M) activists to withdraw nominations, the Left Front convener Bijan Dhar said the saffron party activists had attacked its party office and supporters on Sunday.