IN a design to divert people’s support from the Left Front state government’s ongoing counter-insurgency drive in Tripura --a drive that is gaining spectacular successes because of marvellous cooperation from the common people, especially tribals, the NLFT and its off shoot IPFT extremists have gone on a killing spree of leading CPI(M) and Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP) leaders. In three separate incidents during the last few days they have killed five CPI(M) leaders - veteran and popular tribal leader comrade Sarbajoy Reang aged 74 years, three divisional committee members Aswini Debbarma, Bidyajoy Reang and Kalendra Chakma and another veteran GMP leader Ratanjoy Reang aged 70 years.

The party polit bureau ,state Left Front committee and GMP central committee have, in separate statements, expressed deep shock and strong condemnation of these brutal killings.

They felt these killings were part of a desperate design of the internal and international vested interests to eliminate the frontline leaders of the state’s mass movement for democracy and development, peace and harmony especially to weaken the left front in the run-up to the next assembly polls in Tripura. They were adopting the same modus operandi as in last years Autonomous District Council (ADC) elections. IPFT is presently the ruling party of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC).

At about 7.00 p.m. July 30, a group of armed NLFT extremists and their IPFT accomplices forcibly picked up CPI(M) divisional Committee member and GMP local committee secretary comrade Aswini Debbarma (58) from his house of interior Maninama and shot him nearby and also s hacked him to death using sharp weapons. Immediately thereafter, the killers went to Lalchhara and forcibly picked up the party divisional committee member and GMP central committee member comrade Bidyajoy Reang (65) and another comrade aged 60 years from their houses situated three kilometers apart. The extremist hit squad took them to Pckua Karbari Para and killed them in a gruesome manner.

The extremists also severely beat up 10 CPI(M) activists, all tribals and threatened them against going to hospital. According to local villagers, there was earlier a session of some NLFT and IPFT members a couple of weeks ago at Chichingcherra, in which the plan to kill the CPI(M) leaders on July 30 was drawn up. As part of the plan 30/35 activists were also roughed up a day earlier by the extremists.

The NLFT extremists brutally killed a veteran leader of GMP at Pecharthal in North Tripura on July 21, even as the so called Bengali Liberation Army (BLA) engineered a bomb blast in the crowded Lake Chowmohani market of Agartala on July 22 morning. The blast killed a retired state government officer, a tribal, on the spot and injured 16 others, 12 of whom were tribals.

On July 21 morning, a group of 20 to 25 NLFT extremists raided the house of GMP leader comrade Ratanjoy Reang (70) at Ramdhulapara in Pecharthai. Comrade Reang was dragged out from his sleep and a rope was fastened around his neck. In this barbaric manner he was brought to the house of another tribal CPI(M) member, Ramdharmani Reang, in the neighbourhood and was brutally tortured there. The torture ended when comrade Ratanjoy Reang was gunned down by the extremists. The latter also grievously injured Ramdharmani Reang as well as an activist of the DYFI-affiliated Tribal Youth Federation when he came forward from another neighbouring house after hearing the gunshot.

Comrade Ratanjoy Reang, who was killed on July 21, was a member of the local Panchayat Development Committee and had declined to concede the NLFT demand that the tribal development fund be handed over to the extremists. Before the attack, the extremists had damaged a development project --- a school building under construction --- in this tribal village.

A 12-hour bandh was observed in the area on July 22, at the call of the CPI(M), to protest this brutal murder. The CPI(M) state secretariat as well as the GMP central committee have vehemently condemned the dastardly attack and assassination of a party and GMP activist. The GMP statement said the extremists, instigated by foreign-sponsored elements, have made it a point to use violence in order to stall the Left Front government’s special development drive for tribal areas.

At about 8 p.m, August 3, the NLFT extremists and their IPFT aides totaling 10-12 camouflaged in Assam Rifles uniform forcibly picked up Comrade Sarbajoy Reangh (74) from his house at Gachhirampara, a village named after his father late Gachhiram Reangh and took him across a nearby river to a school ground. Starting the torture with a severe caning they hacked him with a sharp chopper. His shriek reached the villagers who were scared off by the arms wielded by the squad. At about 10 p.m. four gunshots were heard and next morning the police led by the SDO and the SDPO recovered his mortal remains with four bullets.

Member of the CPI(M) divisional secretariat, seasoned GMP leader and father of the two sons and a daughter, Comrade Sarbajoy Reang lost his elder son Bhaktiram Reang martyred on November 15 last in a motivated Bengali racist furry following an incident of extremists attack on the day.

Comrade Sarbajoy Reangh who had been elected an ADC member of Kanchanpur in two conclusive elections earlier, was kidnapped with death-threat by NLFT extremists during the run up to the ADC polls of April 2000 to desist his son, youth leader and former ADC executive member comrade Rajendra Reang from contesting the polls. Although comrade Rajendra Reang did not yield to this threat and stayed in his left front candidature, he was defeated like numerous other left front nominees in the IPFT’s usurpation of the ADC in last years ADC election, at extremists gunpoint conducted in an unprecedented atmosphere of anti-left front terror campaign and insecurity, as part of a deep-laid design in which the centre’s blatant denial of requisite security forces to the state was also involved.

A 12 hour Kanchanpur bandh observed yesterday at the call of the CPI(M) to protest the assassination of Comrade Sarbajoy Reang who’s funeral was also carried out yesterday amid the tears of hundreds of tribals and non-tribals people of the sub-division.

It is apparent that these elements have been emboldened by the centre’s recent withdrawal of an army battalion and the imminent withdrawal of an Assam Rifles battalion from Tripura. In a state that is already suffering from the paucity of paramilitary personnel, the tribal militants and Bengali miscreants have given visible signs that they are out to wreck their vendetta on the tribals for playing a prominent part in the Left Front government’s successful counter-insurgency measures in the recent months. These elements, whose strings are pulled by the anti-Left Front vested interests, are particularly incensed with the people’s exemplary cooperation with the Left Front government of Tripura in curbing the terrorist menace in the state.