AGARTALA, Oct 12 (TIWN / bdnews24): An official of the Tripura Road Transport Corporation (TRTC) has been forced to go into hiding in Dhaka after persistent threats by goons close to a Bangladesh bus operator.

The TRTC liaison officer L J Rokhum was in Dhaka to secure road permit for a new Volvo bus of his company that will ply on the Agartala-Kolkata route via Dhaka.

“He got the road permit from Bangladesh authorities for our bus but those papers were snatched by the goons ,” said a senior official of the Tripura transport department." They dont want our bus to run on this route." 

The goons are close to ‘Shyamoli Poribohon’ which operates buses between India and Bangladesh for transport corporations of West Bengal and Bangladesh.

“The owner of this company visited Tripura and wanted to run his bus on our route. He indicated that if we run our bus   , it will affect his business interests,” the Tripura official said." But we are determined to run our bus on this route." 

Rokhum has switched off his mobile phone in Dhaka to avoid detection by the goons after he informed Keshav Kar, managing director of the Tripura Road Transport Corporation (TRTC). 

Kar advised him to return to Agartala immediately.

Tripura transport secretary Samarjit Bhowmik told bdnews24.com  that he has already informed the Indian high commission in Dhaka to ensure security for Rokhum  and also provide adequate security cover to the TRTC bus when it starts plying to Kolkata via Dhaka from this month.

“We are surprised that a private operator can be so brazen . Unless the Shyamoli Poribohon is reigned in, the operation of the direct bus between Dhaka and Kolkata will be adversely affected,” another Tripura official said but insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.