Agartala, June 14 (IANS) Ruling BJP in Tripura on Saturday staged state-wide protests along the Bangladesh border, protesting the recent attack and vandalism of the ancestral home of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in the neighbouring country.

BJP sources said that the protests were held in more than six places in six districts along Tripura’s border with Bangladesh.

Senior leaders including ministers led the protest rallies in Agartala, Udaipur, Belonia, Kailashahar, Dharmanagar and Khowai.

State BJP General Secretary and MLA Bhagaban Das, who led a protest rally in Agartala- Akhaura Integrated Check Post, said, “A barbarie incident of attack and vandalisation at the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore in Bangladesh has shocked people in India.”

Das, a former minister, said that such an attack on the shared cultural heritage is totally unacceptable.

“There must be a limit to such atrocious actions. The properties and heritage relating to towering cultural icon like Tagore has not been spared in Bangladesh. Such acts are unforgivable crime,” he told the media.

Das also lambasted that the interim government in Bangladesh headed by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus entirely failed to maintain law and order of the country creating unprecedented unrest.

The BJP leader informed that protests would also be held on June 16 in all assembly constituencies in Tripura.

On June 8, a mob attacked and vandalised the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore in Bangladesh, also known as Rabindra Kachharibari or Rabindra Memorial Museum in Sirajganj district.

Media reports said that the attackers also assaulted a director of the institution. Situated in Shahzadpur in Rajshahi division, Rabindra Kachharibari is the ancestral home and revenue office of the Tagore family.

Many of Tagore’s literary works came up while living in this mansion.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha also condemned the attack and vandalisation of Tagore’s ancestral home in Bangladesh and termed it as an “attack on our culture and heritage”.

He said that the act was a strongly condemnable and shameful incident to the entire nation.

“Tagore is the architect of the national anthem of both India and Bangladesh,” Saha said in his Facebook post and demanded exemplary punishment for those who are involved in the shocking incident.

“The interim government of Bangladesh needs to act strongly,” the Chief Minister said.

BJP Tripura state president and Rajya Sabha member Rajib Bhattacharjee also condemned the vandalisation of Tagore’s home in Bangladesh and termed the act as a blow to literature, culture and humanism.

India on June 12 strongly condemned the vandalism of Tagore’s ancestral home in Bangladesh describing it as part of a “systematic” pattern by extremists to undermine the country’s syncretic cultural heritage.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had termed the June 8 attack on the Rabindra Kachharibari as a “despicable” act and “a disgrace to the memory and the inclusive philosophy” of the Nobel Laureate.

–IANS

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