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Agartala, Feb 20 (IANS) Hundreds of people Wednesday gathered at an India-Bangladesh checkpost in Tripura to show solidarity with protestors in Dhaka who are demanding death penalty for those convicted of war crimes. Intellectuals, law makers, artists, singers, academicians, journalists, writers and poets of Bangladesh and India gathered at the Akhaurah border checkpost and performed numerous programmes to express their solidarity with the protestors in central Dhaka. Thousands of protestors have assembled in central Shahbag Square in Dhaka for over a fortnight demanding the death penalty for war crimes during the country's liberation war in 1971. "Though symbolic, we feel the people of Tripura must express our solidarity for the demonstrators who are on the streets seeking death penalty to the people involved in the war crimes," said organiser Sanit Debroy, managing director of "Ajker Fariad", a local daily. Bangladesh's Brahmanbaria's Upazila chairman Alhaj Sheikh Borhanuddin said: "Like 1971 liberation war, this type of solidarity would definitely strengthen our fight against the war crimes and apt punishment for assassins." "People of Tripura always respect and support the cause of the Bangladeshi people. We would continue to do so in future too," said former Tripura minister and Communist Party of India-Marxist legislator Pabitra Kar. According to historian and writer Bikach Chowdhury, Tripura had six to seven camps in four sectors from where the 'muktijoddhas' (freedom fighters) fought the Pakistani forces in the nine-month-long war in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh, which was earlier East Pakistan. "Over 1,600,000 Bangladeshis - a number larger than the state's then total population of 1,500,000 - had taken shelter in Tripura alone," he said.
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