Tripura police have registered case against the state Congress vice president Tapas Dey for allegedly sharing fake news with respect to the against Chief Minister Biplab Deb. He is the third person to be charged in the case. Earlier a freelance journalist Saikat Talapatra was arrested from Agartala for spreading rumours about chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and his wife. On the same day Jamal Hussein, a security guard of Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker Islamuddin, was also arrested on same charges.
According to Tripura Police, Saikat Talapatra was charged with defamation and criminal conspiracy against the CM. Tapas Dey has been booked in the same case as per the information provided by Tripura police to the media. The fake post that was shared on social media platforms and WhatsApp with an attachment was actually a divorce filed by some other man in a court in New Delhi and had no connection with the CM or his wife. However, Tapas Dey is yet to be arrested.
Tapas Dey is a former MLA and is accused of sharing the defamatory content against the personal life of CM Biplab Deb and his wife. Dey has agreed that he shared the information on WhatsApp groups but in his defence he says that he shared only to ask his friends to confirm the content. Tripura BJP spokesperson Dr Ashok Sinha has said that Tapas Dey is a very senior leader who knows the law very well and if he is claiming innocence the law should take its own course and acquit him.
Last week Tripura CM Biplab Deb’s wife Niti Deb took to Facebook and decried the fake news against them and wrote that it was done for ‘cheap publicity and mileage’. She wrote in her post, “Rumors have no mouth, only dirty, filthy and sick minds generate for cheap publicity and mileage and importantly when paid high for spreading such dirty Rumors to gain political advantage against influential people”. She also appealed people to ‘boycott’ rumour mongers as it was done only to ‘tarnish’ her image.
