Agartala Feb 12: Backed by majority of indigenous student bodies including the Twipra Students’ Federation of Tripura (TSF), the youth activists of Tipra Indigenous Students Federation (TISF) blocked roadways and railways across the entire state including the capital city on Monday with a demand for allowing the tribal students to write their Kokborok examination in Roman script.

The train services and vehicular movement was severely affected especially in the outskirts and ADC areas. However, the blockade did not affect the capital city much as the protests were lifted by a huge contingent of security forces including Tripura police and the agitators were detained.

Speaking to the reporters, the TISF leaders who blocked the national highway at Mungiakami said, “It is not today that we are protesting for Roman script for Kokborok language. The movement started way back in 1967”.

“It will be gross injustice to the tribal students who have been learning the language in Roman script from their childhood and their future will be at stake as the TBSE is forcing them to write the important Board examination in Bengali script. It is our language and therefore we must decide what script we will use”, said one of the TISF leaders.

Youth Tipra Federation (YTF) leader Jiten Debbarma said, “This is not a political issue but the issue of students’ future belonging to indigenous communities”.

Meanwhile, the TSF activists blocked the road in front of Tripura chief minister Dr Manik Saha’s residence since Monday morning.

The agitators said, “The government and the TBSE is playing with the lives of the tribal students. It is an act of partiality. We will continue our movement unless the TBSE issues a notification allowing the students to write the examination in Roman script”.

But as the agitators refused to lift the blockade and unauthorized assembly, they were all detained by security personnel.

According to reports, the agitating tribal student bodies blocked roadways in approximatey 33 locations in eight districts while train services were also stopped in many locations.

 Assam-Agartala, Khowai- Agartala, Kailasahar- Khowai, Udaipur- Agartala roadways were blocked by the agitators.

The call for indefinite protest raised by the indigenous student bodies commenced after the TBSE refused to allow the students to write their Kokborok papers in Roman script which they initially agreed to.

However, there are no reports of any untoward incidents from any of the locations.