The parliamentary team of Left parties and Congress after their two days visit to take stock of the real situation prevailing in the state due to post-poll violence and their interaction with the violence affected families said that all the seven members of the team will raise the issue in the Parliament and will submit memorandum to the President of India to stop violence and to restore the democratic rights of the people.

While, after submitting a memorandum before the Tripura Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya on Saturday morning, the delegation addressing a press conference here at State Guest House said that the teams has been compelled to suspend its outdoor programmes scheduled for Saturday after the visiting MPs were attacked allegedly by the BJP goons when the team was visiting the violence-hit Nehalchandra Nagar area of Bishalgarh in Sepahijala district on Friday evening.

“Some people backed by the ruling BJP attacked them and damaged their three vehicles,” the MPs said the Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya.

Speaking in the press meet Left MP P R Natararajan said that the parliamentary team formed 3 teams and visited three different violence affected areas of the state with state leaders of Left parties and Congress and witnessed and heard from the members of victim families were beyond imagination and far more shocking than they apprehended. “We are in doubt, whether in any state of the country such backlash is carried out by the ruling party on the followers of opponents only because they did not support the ruling party and worked for the opposition in the just concluded assembly elections,” said Natararajan.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said that after the declaration of results of the February 16 assembly polls on March 2, over 1,000 incidents of violence have taken place since March 2, injuring over 200 people, including women and children.

Many people fled from their homes and took shelter in the jungle, different places and outside the state to save their lives, he said, adding that hundreds of houses, shops and business establishments, vehicles and various other properties belonging to opposition parties were destroyed and burnt down. .

The members of the parliamentary team include, P.R. Natarajan, Ranjita Ranjan, A.A. Rahim, Abdul Khalique (Lok Sabha) and Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, Vinay Viswam, and Elaram Karim (Rajya Sabha).

The MPs in their memorandum said that in all the places the remains of gutted houses and shops, charged vehicles right from rickshaws and E-rickshaws, damaged and gutted vehicles are still available and inhuman physical attacks were carried on hundreds of opposition cadres and supporters whoever they came across.

“Residents of the victim families are leading lives in hell for want of food, shelter and medical treatment. During our visit, we ourselves faced open threats from the ruling party cadres in the presence of police,” the memorandum said.

“The worst and most shocking incident took place at Nehalchandra Nagar of Bishalgarh, where our team was almost gheraoed by the irate BJP workers when we were visiting some gutted shops at the market place. Immediately, the team reached to the spot within minutes the miscreants started hurling stone and brick-bats towards us indiscriminately by chanting the slogan of “joy Shriram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Joy”. However, we narrowly saved our lives escaped from clutches of the irate BJP followers and several vehicles of our group members were damaged,” said the MPs.

The MPs told the governor that the victims informed them that the entire state was sparked with an unprecedented backlash of terror and intimidation just at the moment the BJP got majority in the counting of votes of the Assembly election on March 2.

They said that many party offices of the Left parties and the Congress were crushed down  or set on fire. In a word, a complete lawlessness has been prevailing in the state from March 2 onwards.

The police in many places though are trying to take control over the situation, but they don’t dare to arrest any perpetrator because they have an attachment with the ruling BJP. In some places, rather the police act as abettors to the attackers. That is why, though thousands of incidents of attacks have been reported, so far, hardly there is a report of arrest of any culprits.

All the victims who lost dwelling houses, lost professional resources to earn livelihood and caused huge financial burden for treatment must be provided relief from the government, the MPAs told the Governor.   

They also said that to avoid recurrence of similar unwanted situations that they witnessed at Nehalchandra Nagar, they are compelled to abandon Saturday's programme of visit in different places to avoid further such provocation.

They demanded and urged the Governor to move the entire administration to restore peace and remove political hostility and order the police authorities to arrest all perpetrators involved in each and every incident of the political violence and appropriate legal action may be taken against all the culprits accused in these inhuman violence. The MPs also demanded  compensation of all victim families for their livelihood.

Meanwhile, BJP denied the accusations of the parliamentary team.  Demanding thorough probes of all the incidents, BJP spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee said that there is serious conspiracy to break down the law and order and to disturb the peace in Tripura. “For the survival of the opposition Congress and CPI(M) leaders, they are doing all these campaigns against the BJP government to gain political mileage,” he said to the media. Bhattacharjee claimed that before the February 16 assembly polls, the opposition leaders threatened the BJP leaders and workers to take action if they came to power.