176 Tripura Congress members held during strike

AGARTALA: Over 176 Congress members were arrested in North Tripura 's Unokoti district on Thursday during the ongoing 24-hour strike demanding a rollback of the recently-announced hike in healthcare fees.


In the morning, protesters allegedly abused government employees who were on their way to the sub-divisional magistrate's office and attacked two ambulances.

Cops have launched a probe into the incident but no arrests have been made so far.

Senior Congress leader Birjit Sinha said that the strike was called seeking an enquiry into the misappropriation of fund meant for embankment management in Kailashahar, corruption in distribution of compensation among the last year's flood victim and attack on congress offices and workers across the state apart from demanding a rollback in the fee hike.

"A handsome amount was allocated for maintenance of the 72km-long embankment of Manu River in Kailashahar. No work has been done but bills were generated. Similarly, 900 beneficiaries were selected for the flood-relief compensation of which 700 were fake claims," Sinha alleged. He slammed chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb for sheltering corrupt engineers and contractors who loot public money for personal gains.

Sinha also pointed out, "Biplab Deb has been running an autocratic form of government. People had voted him to counter the corrupt CPM regime but it seems that he too is following the same line."