Agartala-Dhaka-Kolkata bus service deferred following alleged attack on Tripura official in Bangladesh

The Agartala-Kolkata bus service via Dhaka, scheduled to be flagged off on Wednesday, has been postponed until Friday following the alleged assault of a Tripura Road Transport Corporation (TRTC) official on Monday in Dhaka.

Tripura Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 13 Oct 2015, 04:54 PM
Updated : 13 Oct 2015, 04:54 PM

"We postponed our prescheduled new Volvo bus service between Agartala-Kolkata via Bangladesh capital Dhaka as our liaison officer LJ Rokhum, who was in Dhaka on Monday to collect road permit for the new bus, was assaulted there by some goons.
 
“They snatched the road permit, issued by Bangladesh government, from Rokhum. However, the officer had returned on Tuesday with a new permit after the Indian High Commission in Dhaka intervened in the matter after Tripura government took up the issue," Tripura Transport Secretary Samarjit Bhowmick told bdnews24.com.
 
It is alleged that the goons who attacked the official are close to 'Shyamoli Paribahan', which operates buses between several cities of India and Bangladesh on behalf of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation.
 
Shyamoli Paribahan on Tuesday denied any involvement in the snatching of the permit or subsequently threatening the TRTC official.  
Apprehending attacks on the Volvo buses to disrupt the service by vested-interest group, Tripura government also sought deployment of police personnel in the bus.
 
Recently, TRTC had purchased a 45-seater Volvo bus at a cost of around 9100,000 rupees for running between Agartala to Kolkata via Dhaka.
 
Kolkata-Dhaka bus service was jointly flagged off by then Prime Minister Atal Vihari Vajpayee and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina on June 19, 1999 and the Agartala-Dhaka bus service was launched in September 2003.
 
Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi jointly flagged off the Dhaka-Shillong-Guwahati and Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus services on June 6.