Amid incidents of violence in Tripura, where a mosque and shops were set on fire in the Panisagar sub-division on Tuesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has set up a five-member committee to probe the matter.
According to the state police, the violence broke out after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological fountainhead, took out a rally against the vandalization of Hindu temples in Bangladesh. Police said some VHP members were allegedly involved in the arson.
The BJP has denied the involvement of its members in the violence.
According to a report, Vinod Sonkar, a Member of Parliament and BJP’s Tripura in charge, said the party has set up the committee that comprises members of its minority cell.
“The committee has been asked to visit the (violence-hit) areas and submit its report in the next two or three days. Since our political opponents accuse us of being biased, we asked the members of the minority cell to probe the incident.”
Sonkar, who will be in Tripura over the weekend, blamed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for planning the violence. He added the TMC, which is trying to make inroads into the state, is trying to polarise the state along religious lines ahead of the assembly polls that are due there in 2023.
Further he also denied speculation that some BJP leaders will be joining the TMC in the state. “There is no friction in the party unit. Even those who had some issues with the party or the government have not quit the party.”
Sonkar also linked the TMC to the demand for a separate state for indigenous people in Tripura even as BJP’s ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura has also supported the idea.
