IFWJ strongly condemns killing of Tripura journalist by policeman
New Delhi, 21st November: Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) has expressed shock and serious concern over the brutal killing of a senior journalist Sudip Dutta Bhowmik today near Agartala. He was a crime reporter of ‘Syandan Patrika’, a widely circulated Bengali daily of Agartala (Tripura).
This is the second gruesome murder of a journalist in Tripura within two months. Last time on 20th September a young TV journalist Shantanu Bhaumik was killed by some hoodlums in the presence of police force but this time a policeman himself went berserk and ripped the body of the journalist Sudip Dutta Bhowmik by pumping bullets from his AK47 from his service gun.
With the murder of 54 year old Sudip Dutta Bhomik, the entire journalist community is horrified. According to the reports available from Debasish Majumder, the former Secretary of ‘Tripura Working Journalists Association’ (TWJA) and colleague of Sudip Dutta Bhowmik, he was killed 15 kms away from Agartala in the residential campus of Tripura State Rifles, where he had gone to meet Tapan Dev Barman, the Commandant of the Tripura State Rifles (STF).
IFWJ President B.V. Mallikarjunaiah and Secretary General Parmanand Pandey have asked the government to order an inquiry by the CBI into the unprovoked killing of the senior journalist. Any inquiry by the state government will not be acceptable because that is bound to be tainted and biased. IFWJ has also demanded that a monetary help of Rs. 50 lakh must be immediately given by the Chief Minister Manik Sarkar to the bereaved family members of the late journalist.
