Tripura former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Agartala: Former Tripura CM and CPI(M) politburo member Manik Sarkar on Thursday welcomed Chief Minister Manik Saha's promise of reopening old cases of political murders to deliver justice to the violence-affected families.
The veteran Left leader also said the people expect the chief minister would reopen cases of murders of 22 CPI(M) leaders and workers during the BJP rule in the state.
During a law and order review meeting, Saha had recently asked the top police officers to identify murder cases and reopen those to deliver justice to the deceased families.
"The chief minister has been stating that the government will reopen old murder cases to deliver justice. We welcome the move. The BJP has been at the helm for the past seven years and who will prevent the chief minister from reopening old murder cases," Sarkar said while addressing a CPI (M) protest rally.
The people also expect the government will "reinvestigate the murder of 22 CPI(M) leaders and workers".
"The cases of three RSS workers, who were abducted by militants and still missing, must be reinvestigated," Sarkar said.
Speaking on the recent peace accord with insurgent groups, the CPI(M) leader said, "There has been no militancy-related incident in the state for the past six to seven years. The insurgents had tried to topple the Left Front government since the beginning of their arms struggle (in the 1990s)."
He also said, "We used to tell the militant groups to initiate peace talks with either the state or the Centre but they did not pay heed. Now, they have come in numbers and surrendered arms." A peace agreement was signed among the central and Tripura governments and two insurgent groups of the state in New Delhi on September 4 in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to end violence and bring peace in the northeastern state.
Saha and senior officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the state government were also present during the signing of the Memorandum of Settlement with the representatives of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF).
Sarkar also slammed the BJP-led government at the Centre and in the state for "failing" to provide adequate assistance to the flood-hit people.
"One and half months have already gone but where is the assistance for the flood-affected people? The money, which was given to the state was not the central assistance. At least 39 people lost their lives while 17 lakh people were affected by the devastating flood.
"The state has never experienced such a disastrous flood in the past 40 years. The party wants the government to arrange adequate help to the flood-affected people immediately", he said.
Earlier, thousands of CPI(M) leaders and workers joined the rally, protesting the alleged worsening of law and order, "inhuman" attitude towards flood-affected people and corruption.