Agartala, Oct. 30: Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar has indirectly accused the Opposition parties of trying to divert the attention of people from the October 1 Agartala bomb blasts to protect the actual culprits behind them.

Sarkar did not take any name but was apparently reacting to the demand for a CBI inquiry and statements on the blasts made by the leader of the Opposition, Ratanlal Nath, recently. “Our police and CID have cracked the case and almost all the main culprits are behind bars. The chargesheet against the accused will be filed soon but a section is trying to protect the culprits,” the chief minister said.

“The Agartala blasts were engineered with the purpose of ethnically polarising people in the state by creating mutual suspicion and misunderstanding,” Sarkar said, adding that the Left Front government and the police have crushed the conspiracy.

He said the government had launched a “10-year perspective plan” for achieving self-sufficiency in agricultural production in 2005.

“I am glad to announce in this forum that we are well on course to reach our target in the production of rice and vegetables,” Sarkar said.

He pointed out that there is a “scarcity of land” in Tripura and to overcome the shortfall in availability of land “it is imperative that we adopt advanced technology, high-yielding seeds and fertiliser for higher productivity.”

The chief minister expressed grave concern over shortage in fertiliser for agriculture. “Our requirement for the Rabi crop is 18,000 metric tons of fertiliser but we are 10,000 metric tons short. We have already approached the Union ministry of fertiliser for help and expect some relief,” Sarkar said.

He described the railway connectivity up to Agartala as a “great achievement of the Marxists because we had fought for it since the late sixties when other parties and their leaders used to term the demand as insane.” The chief minister appealed to the gathering of TCS officers to co-operate with the state government in implementing all the projects and schemes for development “with sincerity and dedication.”