Goala Basti area emerges as a safe haven of criminals and drug and gun peddlers, people demand action

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, September 4, 2025

The Goala Basti area behind the high court of Tripura complex , north of Agartala , has emerged as a new safe haven for all kinds of criminal activities including drug and gun peddling . A police team of the New Capital Complex (NCC) police station learned this to their cost last night as a large group of criminals backed by residents of the Goala Basti foiled a police attempt to arrest a criminal and made them retreat. But by the time the police had returned with reinforcement the criminal had made good his escape from the area.

Sources from the NCC police station said that acting on a tip-off a police team had gone to nab a drug peddler from his house around 10-00 in the night but his mother told police personnel that he was not at home. But within a short while the peddler was sighted leaving his home and then he organised local people to gherao the police team who were forced to retreat and when the police arrived again with reinforcement the peddlers had escaped the area.

Sources said that over the past few years the Goala Basti area has become a safe haven for all kinds of criminal activities . Attributing their assertion to local people sources said that after dusk often even in day time this area becomes a safe haven for drug and ‘Ganja’ dealing and sale by peddlers sheltered therein . Many women of the area are also engaged in the drug business and in the past there also murders over the illegal business transactions. Apart from this, drug dealers, mostly from Bihar take shelter in this area after reaching Tripura in connection with their illegal business .

The SDPO (NCC police station) Subrata Barman said that whenever an interview or physical and medical tests for recruitment to central paramilitary forces or the army takes place in Tripura droves of miscreant Biharis arrive here in Goala Basti and obtain fake PRC giving local address in Goala Basti . This created problems earlier as local candidates had protested . Despite such incidents and the area being a den of criminals and frauds of all sorts the state police have not yet taken any drastic action. The peaceful residents of nearby areas have demanded demolition of the entire Goala Basti which stands on government land.

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