Over a lakh fill jails in Tripura seeking minimum wages

"The agitation was massive and spontaneous. Over 1.22 lakh working people, including women, cutting across party lines have been arrested from 21 places across Tripura," Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) leader Sankar Datta told reporters.

Besides Datta, also a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) legislator, senior Left leaders who were arrested in the stir include Gautam Das, CITU state general secretary Pijush Nag, Biswanath Saha, Krishna Rakshit and Bijoy Roy.

"Over 13,000 trade union activists were arrested in Agartala while protesting in front of the central government offices and railway stations," Datta said.

Eleven central trade unions, backed by the Left parties, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called the country-wide 'jail bharo' agitation in support of six points demands.

The demands include rollback of petro product price hikes and check prices of essentials, halt disinvestment in central and state undertakings, linkage of employment protection with the concessions or incentives offered to entrepreneurs, universal social security cover for the unorganised sector, new pension policy cancel and pension scheme for all works and compulsory registration of trade unions within 45 days.