Agartala (PTI): Tipra Motha chief Pradyot Debbarma said his party, an ally of the BJP, will organise a rally on September 26 to protest the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh.

Debbarma made the announcement on Saturday after the party's youth wing YTF gave a deputation to the Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Agartala, seeking the safety of minorities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

"This is not the first time that minorities, including Bengali Hindus and indigenous people, were attacked after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government in Bangladesh. Minorities were attacked in Noakhali and Comilla districts too. Maharaja Bir Chandra Library was set on fire and books that were 300 years old were gutted," he said.

Urging the Centre to take up the issue, Debbarma said the time has come to raise it at the United Nations.

"We will stage a massive rally to protest the attack on minorities in Bangladesh on September 26. Our youth organisation YTF will also join the rally to raise voice against the atrocities in the neighbouring country," he said.

Debbarma alleged that people of minority communities who have been living in Bangladesh for hundreds of years were being attacked in a systematic way so that their land could be grabbed.

Tipra Motha is a part of the BJP-led government in Tripura, which shares a border with Bangladesh.

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Colombo (PTI): National People's Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake seems set to become Sri Lanka’s ninth executive president on Sunday with an impressive show in the presidential election, according to postal voting results of seven electoral districts.

The polling took place on Saturday from 7 am to 4 pm local time at over 13,400 polling stations in 22 electoral districts.

The 56-year-old leader had taken an unassailable lead over his rivals, the main Opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, 57, and the incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 75.

According to results declared in postal voting of seven of the 22 electoral districts, the NPP leader has gained 56 per cent of the votes, with his rivals trail him by grabbing 19 per cent each.

According to the trend shown in postal voting results, analysts say Dissanayake is likely to win the presidency by 50 per cent plus votes.

This comes after predictions that a second preference vote count might be needed to determine the winner among the three front runners.

The election, dubbed a three-cornered contest between Wickremesinghe, Dissanayake, and Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), shows signs of being a landslide for Dissanayake, who would become Sri Lanka’s first ever Marxist head of state.