Tripura BJP Organising Secretary and architect of the party’s victory in the state Sunil Deodhar on Saturday asked new Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb to “get septic tanks of all minister quarters cleaned before occupying them”.
In a tweet, he also reminded the new chief minister that a woman’s skeleton was recovered from the septic tank of former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s quarters on January 4, 2005. According to him, the case was “deliberately suppressed.”
There seems to be truth in Deodhar’s claim. There were media reports during the said period that during the cleaning up of sceptic tank of Sarkar’s official residence by workers of the Agartala Municipal Council they bumped upon a human skull and a few bones.
According to media reports, under public pressure, the CM had ordered a CID probe, and later it was handed over the case to the CBI. The media report also quotes a source in a lab who said that prima facie the skeleton could of a rape victim.
According to an Opindia report, the girl had been suspected to be killed between December 29, 2000, and January 4, 2005, a period when Sarkar was the occupant of the official residence. He claimed that the tank was last cleaned on December 29, 2000, and there was nothing found in it then, hence the crime had occurred post that date. Manik Sarkar had stayed in that residence since 1998.
Author Dinesh Kanji, in his book on Manik Sarkar, claimed that Barman’s claims were taken lightly by the media as they were not convinced of his integrity. It is surprising that such a ghastly news from a ruling CM’s house, never made it to the prime-time debates of Indian television. Nor is this story popular enough in the minds of the Indian electorate. No doubt, if the same story had emerged from the house a BJP CM, it would have been hung around his head for his whole life.
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