Tripura Govt Orders Magisterial Inquiry Against BJP MLA

The Tripura Government has ordered a magisterial inquiry against BJP MLA Sudip Roy Barman for visiting a COVID Care Centre in Agartala without requisite permission from the government, officials said on Wednesday.

The inquiry was ordered by the State Home Department which asked the District Magistrate of West Tripura Sandeep Namdeo Mahatme to submit report within 15 days.

Wearing a PPE kit, the former health minister visited the COVID Care Centre set up at the Bhagat Singh Youth Hostel on Sunday and distributed fruits among the patients. Deputy Secretary A Deb, in the order issued on Tuesday, asked the district magistrate to inquire on "three aspects nature of the breach of security, the risk to the health of self and others, including inmates, and fixing of responsibility on all those who connived or facilitated, and nature of connivance or facilitation".

A suo motu case was also filed against Barman, who was removed as the health minister in May last year, under the Epidemic Diseases Act at the Capital Complex police station, a police officer said. Following the visit, the administration also asked Barman to go on quarantine but he refused, calling it a "conspiracy" to get him exposed to coronavirus.

The district magistrate served a memo to him on Monday, stating that he entered the COVID Care Centre "unauthorisedly" and exposed himself to COVID-19 patients there. He put himself at a high risk of developing the disease and due to this, he would be put in institutional quarantine for seven days, followed by seven days of home quarantine, the memo said.