Tripura journalist held from Bengal for maligning CM, politicians

Agartala: Tripura police on Friday arrested journalist Saikat Talapatra from Sodepur in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district on charges of maligning Chief Minister Manik Saha, his family members and many other politicians through his online channels, the police said.

A police officer said that a team of Tripura police Crime Branch arrested Talapatra from a rented house at Muragachha in Sodepur and brought him to Agartala by flight.

There are several cases filed against Talapatra ar many police stations in Tripura.

During the past few years, Talapatra though his YouTube and Facebook channels had also maligned former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Tipra Motha Party (TMP) supremo Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman, Congress leader Sudip Roy Barman and many other politicians.

After getting bail from a Tripura court in one of the cases, he went to Kolkata and did not cooperate with the investigating officers, forcing the court to issue a non-bailable warrant against Talapatra last year.

Since 2021, Tripura police teams had gone to Kolkata on a number of occasions to arrest him, but Talapatra was absconding even as he continued to slander the state politicians on a regular basis.

Talapatra, who had once been a full-time teacher of the Tripura government but lost his job for dereliction of duty, also worked as the key anchor of a local television channel before 2020.