Tripura scribe shot, cop held

Guwahati, November 21

A senior journalist, Sudip Dutta Bhowmick, was allegedly shot dead by a Tripura State Rifles (TSR) constable following an altercation at the headquarters of TSR 2nd battalion at RK Nagar in Agartala around 1 pm today. The journalist had gone there on an assignment.

Bhowmick, 48, was a senior reporter of Agartala-based Bengali daily Chandan Patrika. “After reaching the spot, we found the journalist lying in a pool of blood. We took him to GB Hospital in Agartala where the doctors declared him brought dead,” said West Tripura SP Abhijit Saptarshi. A TSR constable has been arrested in this connection, the SP said.

The incident has numbed the journalist fraternity in the poll-bound Left-ruled state. Tripura Journalist Union president Syed Sajjad Ali condemned the killing, calling it a cold blood murder by a man in uniform and demanding a judicial probe into the incident.

The killing comes two months after a TV journalist, Santanu Bhowmick, was stabbed to death by miscreants belonging to the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura on September 20. — TNS/PTI