Tripura rights panel serves notice to police over teacher’s lynching

The Tripura Human Rights Commission (THRC) has served notice to the Superintendent of Police of the Gomati district and directed him to submit a report within four weeks over the lynching of government school teacher Abhijit Dey by some people, officials said on Monday.

The three-member rights panel said that the commission would like to know the actual incident that occurred and therefore, before taking formal cognizance, like to receive a report from the Superintendent of Police through the Director General of Police.

On receipt of the SP’s report further steps would be taken by the Commission, a THRC official told IANS.

The THRC, headed by Swapan Chandra Das, retired Tripura High Court judge, in its notice to the Gomati district police chief quoting the newspaper reports said that Dey was forcefully taken to the house of Sankar Karmakar on an allegation of sending a “bad message” to his minor daughter over the mobile phone.

Thereafter, Dey was mercilessly beaten up by Karmakar and his associates and when his wife went to save him, she was also beaten up.

After Dey (40) was brutally tortured in front of his wife on August 8 at Udaipur in Gomati district, he succumbed to his injuries on August 10.

Amid the statewide protests over the ‘lynching’ of the government school teacher, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha on Sunday visited the residence of the slain teacher Dey and assured the family members that the government would do everything to ensure justice.

A group of lawyers also on Monday went to the house of Dey and assured his family members of providing all kinds of support.

In connection with Dey’s killing, Tripura Police have so far arrested four main accused -- Jayanta Saha, Sankar Karmakar, Suman Madrazee and Biswajit Saha -- and are looking for a few other attackers.

In protest against the incident, many teachers' and students' bodies, NGOs, and political parties organised protest rallies in various parts of Tripura, especially in Udaipur almost regularly.

Dey, a government school postgraduate teacher, used to teach a female student of Class 8 at her home.

According to Dey’s wife, on August 8, the girl asked the teacher to translate an English word, and he replied to the meaning of the particular word through WhatsApp chat, which was 'misinterpreted' by the girl and her parents.

Later, the girl student's father, Sankar Karmakar, called Dey and his wife at their house and the teacher was severely thrashed by the girl's father and others. They also assaulted his wife -- also a government school teacher.

The police went to the spot and rescued Dey before he was taken to Gomati district hospital for medical treatment.

Dey's wife, who later filed a complaint with the police against four accused persons, said that after the assault, the girl student's family members filed a case against her husband at the Udaipur Women’s Police Station with a "false accusation".

Subsequently, the teacher was arrested and presented in a court, where he fell ill and started vomiting blood, following which he was again taken to the district hospital, which referred Dey to the government-run Govind Ballabh Pant Medical College and Hospital in Agartala, where he succumbed to his injuries on August 10.

A CPI-M delegation led by Opposition Leader Jitendra Chaudhury and a Congress delegation led by former minister Sudip Roy Barman separately met the family members of Dey. Both demanded severe punishment for the culprits.

Congress and CPI-M leaders alleged that police and doctors were also negligent over the death of Dey and that an investigation must be done into their "suspicious" role.