Former Tripura Health minister’s murder case
Agartala: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Friday asked Law Minister Tapan Chakraborty to institute an inquiry into the leakage of judicial commission report on the assassination of former health minister Bimal Sinha on March 31, 1998 before it’ tabled in the assembly.
Replying to leader of the opposition Sudip Roy Barman in the assembly, Mr Sarkar expressed concern over the leakage of the report, which has been kept secret for last 16 years.
“I have seen the media reporting referring the contents of the commission’s report. Home department is not dealing the issue and law department is the custodian of the report. Law minister is in the House, I request him to conduct an inquiry into the matter,” Sarkar asserted in the House.
After question hour in the House, Barman raised the matter stating that after assassination of former minister of left front government Sinha in a mysterious circumstance, the state government had constituted a judicial commission headed by Justice M Yusuf of West Bengal.
The commission had submitted the report on January 31, 2000, but the state government yet to publish it. Recently, a division bench of High Court headed by Chief Justice Deepak Gupta hearing a PIL filed by president of Tripura Congress women wing Kalayani Roy asked the government to make the report public in the current session of assembly. “Suddenly, on the first day of the session, a leading vernacular newspaper has published a most sensitive observation of the commission contained in the report. It is really unwanted for a government that it could not ensure the secrecy of such classified report,” Barman stated.
He said, according to media report, Sinha had been maintaining close relation with insurgent outfits through his private secretary who was excluded from the trail by the state government. Sinha went to release his brother from the custody of outlawed NLFT militant without informing police and even did not take his escort party except the private secretary.
Sinha had also held regular meetings with the insurgent leaders in a house of his locality and he had mediated for releasing abducted cadres of CPI-M from NLFT. The commission in it’s report, blamed the CM for not preventing his cabinet colleagues from maintaining rapport with insurgents, Barman added.
The state government had been criticised by the trail court because they acquitted seven of the accused who were charge-sheeted without proper ground. Bimal Sinha’s wife and present CPI-M MLA Bijoy Laxmi Sinha urged the state government to appeal in the apex court against the High Court order but the government has not responded. (UNI)