Jiten Paul, a veteran journalist and freedom fighter, passed away on Friday at a hospital in Agartala, at age of 101. With his demise, a brilliant legacy of journalism and social movement in northeast India came to an end.
“He was suffering from ailments, mainly old age complications and passed away before dawn”, a doctor of GBP Hospital said. A large number of journalists, photographers and people from different walk of life rushed to the hospital after the news spread.
He launched Tripura’s first Bengali daily Jagaran in 1953 and had been a guiding force for journalists, intellectuals and social activists for decades. He tirelessly worked towards rehabilitation of Bengali migrants from East Pakistan after partition of India and later for people displaced internally due to ethnic strife and insurgency problem in Tripura.
Before settling down in Tripura, he took part in India’s independence movement in Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh, where he was born in 1914. The nonagenarian was actively involved welfare activities and rights movements of journalists till his last days.
Tripura Journalists Union, Tripura Working Journalists Association, Tripura Photo Journalists Association, Tripura Outstation Correspondents’ Forum, Agartala Press Club and several non-media organisations paid tribute to the departed soul. Leaders of political divide visited his home and also attended his funeral.
