Large cache of grenades found in Tripura, defused
Agartala: Over 150 grenades, recovered by the police from beneath the soil in northern Tripura, have been defused by army experts, police said on Saturday. The 151 grenades, buried at Gaurnagar in northern Tripura, were recovered by the police last week. “Experts from army’s divisional headquarters at Masimpur (near Silchar in southern Assam) came on Friday and defused the grenades,” northern Tripura’s Unokoti district police chief Ajit Pratap Singh told reporters. He said students found the grenades while playing near a central school at Gaurnagar. They informed their elders, who immediately alerted the police, who rushed to the area and recovered the grenades after digging up the soil. Local villagers said that the grenades might have been buried during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 when the sovereign country emerged. Historian Bikach Chowdhury said Tripura had six to seven camps in four sectors from where the Bangladeshi ‘Mukti Joddhas’ (freedom fighters) fought Pakistani forces after being trained in Tripura. “Over 1,600,000 Bangladeshis — a number larger than the state’s then total population of 1,500,000 — had taken shelter in Tripura alone,” he said. The nine-month-long “Mukti Juddho” (Liberation War) later turned into a full-scale India-Pakistan War, leading to the surrender of nearly 93,000 Pakistani soldiers in Dhaka on December 16, 1971. Tripura shares 856 km borders with Bangladesh. (IANS)
Two detained on charges of molestation in Assam
Morigaon (Assam): Two teenagers were on Saturday detained here on charges of molesting a girl, police said. The girl’s family, in an FIR lodged yesterday, has alleged that the two boys along with two others had abducted her, molested and attempted to rape her. The teenaged girl was, however, rescued by the neighbours when she shouted for help, police sources said. The boys were detained and search is on for two others who are absconding, police said. (PTI)
Women’s wing of Sikkim opposition party meets Rajnath
Gangtok: The women’s wing of the major opposition party in Sikkim has submitted a memorandum to Union Minister Rajnath Singh seeking protection and security to the people of the Northeast in the National Capital Region. Nari Morcha leaders of the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM), represented by Kala Rai, Mingma Tamang and Junu Chettri, met the Union Home Minister here on Friday and submitted a memorandum seeking justice in the alleged rape of a Sikkim woman in Gurugram. The 22-year old woman from Sikkim, mother of a six year old child, had alleged that she was forcefully dragged into a car and raped by three men in the moving vehicle for nearly three hours and then thrown on the road. The Morcha leaders also highlighted the suspicious death of a Darjeeling girl, Teresa Rai, in Delhi. They raised the issues concerning repeated instances of violence against women from the Northeast in the national capital. (PTI)
Assam to take back unused land from industry
Guwahati: The Assam government is planning to take back land given to industrial units which failed to start production even after three years of allotment. Industry minister Chandra Mohan Patowari said this on Friday. He added that the unused land of the closed public sector undertakings would also be pulled back to the Land Bank for fresh allotment to new industrial units. The decision assumes significance as the erstwhile Congress government in Assam, which was in power for 15 years, allotted land to many industrial units. But there was no activity on most of these lands even after 15 years. The Minister said the government had created a Land Bank and that there was close to 700 acres of developed land available in the Bank for allotment to investors. (IANS)
Rabha meets CM; discusses her crusade against witch hunting
Guwahati: Birubala Rabha, who has been waging a war against witch hunting in Assam on Saturday met Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal here and apprised him about her proposed visit to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Hailing Rabha’s crusade against witch-hunting, Sonowal assured all help to her in her campaign against witch hunting. Wishing her a fruitful discussion at the Witchcraft and Human Rights experts workshop in Switzerland, Sonowal hoped that synergistic efforts of Rabha with her confidantes and Assam Government would result in a society deterrent to witch hunting. He also felicitated Rabha acknowledging her unrelenting efforts to educate society against witch hunting. (PTI)
