Three miscreants arrested for the attack on a group of journalists on September 9 midnight in a street of Agartala were sent to two days police remand after nine days of jail custody for interrogation.

On the ill-fated night of September 9, six journalists were en route to the Chandrapur Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT) around 1 AM when a four-wheeler blocked their path. A group of miscreants came out from the car and all of sudden they attacked the journalists.

During attack by miscreants on way from Motor Stand to Math Chowmuhani, three attackers Sukanta Debnath (alias Nishan), Akash Banik, and Sourav Bhattacharya were arrested after Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha issued stern warning against miscreants and ordered for prompt police action.

In the attacks journalists and editor of ‘Public Now’ news channel Prasenjit Bhattacharjee, Bijoy Singha Roy, Pranab Shil, and senior journalist Mihir Sarkar suffered injuries.

On September 10, when 3 miscreants attackers Sukanta Debnath (alias Nishan), Akash Banik, and Sourav Bhattacharya produced before a local court, they were sent for nine days judicial custody and again on September 19(Thursday) , they were produced before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of West Tripura district, Saikat Das, the prosecution team demanded for five days police remand.

During the hearing, the court rejected all bail petitions of three accused persons  and granted two days police remand up to September 21st for interrogation .

The court in its order stated that “ this court perused the case diary and the interrogation report and finds that prima-facie in this case, from the investigation made so far, the involvement of the accused persons in the alleged offence is found. This court finds that there are materials showing that the accused person assaulted the complainant who are found to be journalists.”

During argument, the defense team of lawyers in support of their police remand appeals cited that ‘to recover the deadly sharp cutting weapons and sophisticated weapons used by the accused persons in committing the crime and grievously assaulting the complainant and other senior journalists. They also cited that to recover the robbed valuable gold made chain of the complainant and cash money, proper interrogation of the accused persons in police custody is needed to recover robbed articles.

After hearing from both prosecution and defense teams, the court granted two days police remand for all three accused persons.

Giving details APP in-charge, advocate Dilip Debnath said that as per the FIR filed at East Agartala police station case number-103/2024 under sections 126(2), 118 (2), 109 (1), 308 (5), 324 (5), 351 (2), 3(5) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), all arrested miscreants would again produce before the court on Saturday.

It may be recalled here that the attack on scribes drew widespread condemnation from media bodies and after deputation with DGP on September 10 last by united forum of all journalist unions, he assured them that stringent steps would be taken to ensure the safety of journalists across the state and Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha also strongly condemned the incident and assured justice to all victim journalists.