After Assam, child-lifting rumours now reach Tripura

GUWAHATI: Mobile internet and SMS services are suspended in BJP-ruled Tripura since Thursday after rumour mongering on social media over child-lifting for illegal organ trade claimed three lives and injured five others in a string of mob violence.

Official sources say the services will remain blocked till Saturday 2 pm to thwart recurrence of such atrocities.

Mob violence that started in neighbouring Assam's Karbi Anglong district has now spread to Tripura. Three hawkers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who reached by a car at Murabari in Tripura West district, were mistaken as child-abductors. Locals thrashed and chased them to a camp of Tripura State Rifles. Despite police intervention, a mob barged into the camp and lynched one of the hawkers. Two other hawkers, the car driver and a police constable were admitted to a hospital.

At Kalachera in South Tripura district bordering Bangladesh, a mob killed Sukanta Chakraborty who was out there in a car with loudspeakers campaigning against superstitions. The car driver escaped with injuries. Initially, the police said the attack was a result of rumour-mongering but it retracted later.

In the third incident at Bishalgarh Sephahijila district, a deranged woman died after she was brutally beaten up by a mob which suspected that she was part of a child-lifting and organ trafficking racket. Eight people have been arrested so far in these cases.

Unfortunately, BJP and opposition CPI-M and Congress are engaged in mud-slinging. The opposition parties blames the BJP for failing to protect innocent lives. The BJP accuses the CPI-M of triggering panic by circulating rumours.