Agartala, June 29: Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Friday said that the police and civil administration would take stern action against those who take the law into their own hands.
The Chief Minister's warning came after three people including a vagabond woman and a vendor from Uttar Pradesh were lynched by mobs in different incidents in Tripura on Thursday.
Deb, who is also holding the home portfolio, while talking to the media said that police and other security forces were fully alert and ready to deal with the situation and adequate arrangements have been made to maintain law and order.
"Nobody would be allowed to take law in their hands and strict action would be taken against those who indulge in violence and attack innocent people," the Chief Minister said before leaving for Manipur capital Imphal where he would attend a party meeting to be chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah.
Blaming the opposition CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist) "for creating troubles and disturbing peace in Tripura", the Chief Minister said that police would not see the political affiliation while taking action against the law breakers.
A vendor from Uttar Pradesh was lynched and four others, including a policeman, were seriously injured when a group of persons mistook them to be child lifters.
The incident took place in the tribal-dominated Murabari village in western Tripura when three small-time vendors belonging to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar went there to sell garments in a vehicle.
In another incident, a youth was hacked to death and two government employees seriously injured when a group of persons attacked them at Manu Bazar in southern Tripura, 130 km south of the state capital.
Sukanta Chakraborty, 36, accompanied by two government employees, was attacked when he was appealing to the public on behalf of the administration not to heed rumours.
In the third incident, a vagabond woman was hacked to death by a group of people at Bishalgarh in western Tripura mistaking her to be a child trafficker.
The West Tripura district administration on Thursday imposed prohibitory orders under Sec 144 in the tense areas under Mohanpur sub-division.
The ban on social media and mobile Internet continued for the second day on Friday to prevent the spread of rumours in the state.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Bhopal (PTI): A village in eastern Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori district is hoping for an end to its water woes, courtesy of a woman who refused to put up with the water scarcity and left her husband in protest.
The man, Jitendra Soni of Devra village, took his water-induced marital grievance to the district administration during the weekly ‘Jansunwai’ (a public outreach programme) on Tuesday.
Acting on Soni’s complaint, the Dindori collector directed officials from the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department to resolve the water shortage in Devra, located just 3 km from the district headquarters.
The tribal-dominated Dindori district, bordering Chhattisgarh, is located about 460 km from the MP capital Bhopal.
Soni told PTI, “My wife has abandoned me due to the water crisis in my village. She went to her parents’ house along with our children. I shared my plight with the district collector. The PHE department has been directed to take steps to arrange water in the village.”
Soni said he tried to persuade his wife Laxmi to stay back, but she didn’t listen.
“I told her that our children’s studies would get affected, but she said there is no future in the village due to the water crisis,” he said.
Soni claimed that several other women from his village are ready to leave due to water scarcity.
“There are several families that are not speaking up out of fear of infamy and have moved out of the village silently. But I am an unemployed labourer and there is no scope of arranging water on my own,” he claimed.
Soni said their village has a handpump and 2,000-2,500 residents are dependent on it.
“There is a huge crowd at the handpump from morning till night. People hardly get any water from there,” he said.
PHE official Afzal Amanullah told PTI that they have started work to resolve the issue.
“The village has a borewell that was dug under the ‘Nal, Jal’ scheme, but the water level has dropped, and people are not getting adequate water in Devra village. The villagers have demanded that they be provided water connections from the overhead tank in a neighbouring village,” he said.
Amanullah said that the work of connecting the old pipeline in Devra with the overhead tank is being carried out on Wednesday.
“We are going to start the water supply through the overhead tank,” he said.
He said the work to provide tap water to Devra, Hans Nagar and Saket Nagar was earlier sanctioned under the ‘Jal Jeevan’ Mission. Accordingly, the overhead tank was constructed in Hans Nagar.
After connecting the existing pipeline network in Devra to the overhead tank, Soni and other villagers will have better access to water, he said.
The PHE is trying to connect all the areas of the village through water supply lines, Amanullah added.