AGARTALA, April 21 (TIWN): Mandai Block will receive the best block award for its development work, maintenance of law and order on April 21st. The officials of the Block will receive the award at a special programme which is scheduled to come off in Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan.

On 8th June 1980, a massacre by tribal insurgents where 255 Bengali Hindus were massacred in Mandwi while foreign presses, independent sources and eyewitnesses put the figure anywhere between 350 to 400. Many of the victims had their heads crushed and their limbs severed. The children were spiked through. Pregnant women had their stomach slit open.

With the passage of time, hard work put in by the left front government has brought a major socio-economic transformation in Mandai, leaving the gory past safely sealed in oblivion. And now the hard work is all set to be officially recognized as the Centre has zeroed in on Mandai as the block where development work has taken precedence over everything else.