Tripura police raided the premises of Bengali Daily Syandan Patrika in Agartala on Monday night in connection with a case filed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI).
Sources said a team of West Agartala Police raided the office of the Bengali daily and seized some documents from there.
West Agartala SP Manik Das said the AAI authority had filed an FIR with Airport Police Station alleging a fraudulent publication of advertisement seeking applications for filling up some posts in airports.
“The AAI authority had filed a complaint under Sections 420, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the case was transferred to West Agartala Police Station on jurisdictional ground. Police will proceed under provisions of law,” the SP said.
The incident has sparked massive reaction from Media fraternity in Tripura.
Protesting against the raid, Pranab Sarkar, senior journalist and secretary of Agartala Press Club resigned from his position as member of the state media monitoring committee.
Subal Dey, the editor and owner of Syandan Patrika is known to be close to Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb.
Agartala Press Club condemned the police raid and warned the state government and police administration.
On the other hand, Tripura Newspaper Society (TNS), a common platform of newspapers published from the state, also vehemently condemned the police move.
“TNS condemns and protests the raid in a newspaper office. It is an attack on democracy. Raid in a newspaper office is against the spirit of healthy democracy. We do believe the police will show restraint while dealing with such issues,” said Arun Nath, joint convener of TNS in a statement.
