Agartala: Eight people have been arrested over the attack on Border Security Force personnel at Ashabari village in Tripura's Boxanagar, Chief Minister Manik Saha said on Tuesday. Three jawans were injured in the assault.
Saha, in a post on X, said the administration had been directed to act swiftly and stringently against those responsible. Everyone involved would be brought to justice, he said, and violence against security personnel would not be tolerated.
In an earlier post on Monday night the chief minister condemned the assault, which he described as the work of a group of miscreants, and called the violence unacceptable.
Police have not released the names of the arrested men. The injured personnel are being treated. The BSF has not issued its own detailed account of the incident. The assault was initially attributed to a group of smugglers.
Ashabari lies in the Boxanagar area, close to the Bangladesh border. Border villages in the state have seen smuggling-related incidents before, but there is no official word yet on the motive behind the assault.
The state government said legal proceedings against the accused are under way. Investigators will look at whether the attack was planned and whether anyone else was involved.
Opposition parties have spent months attacking the state government over crime and smuggling along the border. There has been no official reaction from them to this incident so far.
What the chief minister's two posts make clear is that the state has treated the assault as serious and placed the responsibility for a response on the administration.