A fact-finding team comprised Medha Patkar (leader of the National Alliance of People’s Movements - NAPM), Rajaram Singh, ex-MLA (General Secretary of the All India Kisan Mahasabha –AIKM), Dr Ashok Dhawale (President of the All India Kisan Sabha – AIKS), KK Ragesh, MP (Joint Secretary of the AIKS), all the three MPs from Tripura - Jitendra Chaudhury, Shankar Prasad Datta and Jharna Das Baidya - and ex-MP Narayan Kar visited Tripura from August 3-5, 2018 to study the situation there after the BJP-IPFT government came to power in March 2018.
The team travelled hundreds of kilometers and visited several places in six out of eight districts of Tripura – Tripura South, Tripura West, Dhalai, Gomti, Sepahijala, and Khowai- and met hundreds of people from all walks of life and collected detailed and factual account of the different kinds of attacks that have been made in the last five months. The team found that ever since the BJP-IPFT combine won the last state assembly elections the Fundamental Rights under the Constitution are being violated and trampled upon and the law and order has gone in the hands of hoodlums and miscreants. Murder, dacoity, looting, arson, and atrocities on women, minorities, dalits, adivasis and the poor from all communities are rampant. The administration deliberately does not take any action in spite of hundreds of FIRs having been filed by the victims of these crimes. An atmosphere of fear and terror prevails in large parts of the state. The entire opposition in the state is being savagely attacked, with the Left parties’ activists being the main targets. Incidents of physical attacks, cases of mob lynching, cases of extortions are rampant.
