Lynched Tripura Journalist Santanu Bhowmik’s Last Words To His Channel: ‘Reaching Office Soon’

Bhowmik had gone to Mandai, around 25km from the Tripura capital, to report the agitation and road blockade by the Indigenous Peᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚople's Front of Tripura (IPFT) when he was hit from behind and abducted. Later, Bhowmick was found with serious stab injuries and was rushed to the Agartala Medical College and Hospital where doctors declared him brought dead.

Superintendent of Police of ღWest district Abhijit Saptarshi said the situation at Mandai was already tense. Prohibitory orders under section 144 Crpc were already in force in the area and more police forces were being rushed to there. Over a hundred activists of the Gana Mukti Parishad (GMP), the tribal wing of the ruling CPI-M, were on Tuesday injured in a clash with the IPFT at Chhankhola area of Khowai district, about 40 km from Agartala.

“On Wednesday morning, Santanu came to know that the IPFT, which has been demanding a separate tribal state called Tipraland, was holding an agitation in Mandai. Soon, he along with a freel♔ance videojournalist rushed to the spot from his residence in Jirania, which is around 7.5 km from Mandai,” Dhar told Outlook fr෴om Agartala.

Bh🥀owmik then sent the channel a few exclusive footage of the blockade.

“It was around 1.15 pm, Santanu called up one of our colleagues, saying he was reaching the office soon. ♈This was the last time he spoke to us,” said Dhar, who is also the Tripura bureau chief of Kolkata-based Bengali newspaper A💙aj Kal.

According to Dhar, from the agitation site Bhowmik returned to his home for lunch. Around 3 pm, as he was leaving for the office, the journalist received information that members of the IPFT were setting some vehic꧑les ablaze.  

“Without informing ꦇus, he went back to that place, hoping for more exclusive footage. While making some video clips on his mobile phone, he came close to the agitators. That is when he was ‘ghera🌳oed’ by the protestors despite a thick police presence. They first hit Santanu on his leg with a heavy object. When he fell down, they dragged him inside a nearby stadium, where they lynched him,” said the editor, adding that Santanu’s passion for work proved “too costly”.

Dhar added that the atta💛ckers even took away his mobile phone, which could have been a v☂ital evidence in the murder case.

Din Raat was launched in April this year. "I still remember, Santanu had come for a job interview. He was very polite, but looked really impressive. He had previously worked with two othꦇer local channels," he said.

‘He exposed IPFT’

Santanu was among the first journalists in the st♍ate who had rജeported that the IPFT was politically backed. “He loved investigative stories”, recalls Dhar.

 “Ever since he 🗹had joined the Din 🐽Raat -- a cable channel -- in April, he had been extensively covering the IPFT,” he added.

“He was fearless. Perhaps, he was the only journalist who had comprehensively covered the earlier blockade called by the IPFT on July 10 that had led to a serious shortage of essential items, including⛎ food grain. He had become a popular reporter,” said Chakraborty, who was Santanu’s senior colleague when the latter started his journalism career with ‘Khabar 365’, a local Bengali news channel, in 2013.  

Opened a nursery school for poor children

“Santanu would tell me, ‘I want to work for the poor’. He eve🐠n opened a nursery school for poor children near his house and used to teach there. It shows his humanity… I can’t believe he is no more with us,” saidไ Dhar as his voice chokes.