Tripura Lynchings: Minister Ratan Lal Nath Under Fire For Spreading Kidney Racket Rumours, Opposition Demands His Resignation

Agartala, July 2: Tripura Minister for Education and Law Ratan Lal Nath has come under fire for claiming that the kidney of an 11-year-old boy, who was found dead, was missing, even as the postmortem revealed that the boy's kidneys were intact. The Opposition has sought Nath's resignation saying it was such false statements by a leader in power that led to three lynchings in the state. 

An 11-year-old boy was found dead in Tripura's Mohanpur last week, following which Nath had visited the family of the boy. He was heard saying that “the kidney was taken out of the boy’s body after making a round cut”.

The mobs had been charged because of the "baseless" comments of organ harvesting by Nath and he is liable for the three deaths, state Congress vice-president Tapas Dey alleged in a press conference in Agartala. "In a video that went viral on social media, Nath was seen stating the wounds on the boy's body suggested that his kidneys might have been extracted," Dey said.

However, Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb had said in the Assembly on Friday that no organs were harvested from the boy's body, Dey said.

CPI(M) spokesperson Goutam Das alleged that the law minister himself should be held responsible for rumour-mongering over the organ harvesting racket. "How can a minister make such claims without verification? He should take moral responsibility and resign. Otherwise, the chief minister should sack him," Das said.

Meanwhile, Nath defended his remarks saying whatever he said was “in the interest of the people”. “The parents of the killed minor were saying that the kidneys were taken. Thousands of people who had gathered said that the kidneys were taken. There would have been an outburst had I said the opposite. My comments that night were to ventilate the sentiments of the family of the victim and the gathered crowd. It was to give importance to the sentiments of the parents and the crowd,” he said as quoted by The Sunday Express.

Three lynchings were reported in Tripura in one day last week. On June 28, 33-year-old Sukanta Chakrabarty was lynched at Kalachhara in South Tripura district. He was a member of a team set up by the state government to campaign against rumour-mongering. An unidentified woman and a hawker from Uttar Pradesh were also lynched the same day at Bishalgarh in Sipahijala district and Murabari in West Tripura district respectively. Several people were also injured in the three incidents.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 02, 2018 02:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).