PANICKED by the political wilderness that is looming large in face of the anti-Left Front and pro-imperialist vested interests due to the increasing identification of all sections of the state’s population with the Left Front's brilliant initiatives for all-round peace and progress in Tripura, the extremists butchered a total of 8 CPI(M) activists and a pro-Left teacher, and severely injured many others, at several places of the state during the first fortnight of January. This is apart from the kidnapping of 9 employees and workers associated with the railway extension in Tripura in the same period. (See People’s Democracy, January 21.)

In this period, the ATTF and NLFT extremists raided a number of tribal villages in the Sadar subdivision of West Tripura, barging into the houses of the CPI(M) and Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP) leaders and activists, and physically torturing their family members, many of whom are now physically maimed and hospitalised. Huge amounts of money are also being extorted from such families. All this comes close on the heels of the massive mandate which the Left Front received in the December 16 civic polls in Tripura, when the electorate routed the anti-Left Front opposition parties in the state.

On January 13, three activists of the CPI(M) and the DYFI-affiliated Tribal Youth Federation (TYF) were butchered by the outlawed ATTF extremists in village Daighabari under Sadar subdivision. One of those killed was a close relative of a CPI(M) MLA, Pranab Debbarma. On January 11, a popular primary school teacher and an activist of the Left and democratic teachers' movement in the state was kidnapped by the outlawed NLFT extremists. His mutilated dead body was discovered on Sunday, January 14, in Patni area under Sadar subdivision, West Tripura. On the same day, NLFT extremists badly tortured the family members of CPI(M) and TYF leaders and activists after raiding their houses in Mandai area in West Tripura. On January 12, NLFT extremists butchered an activist of the SFI-affiliated Tribal Students Union (TSU), who was a Madhyamik examination candidate at Satpara in Mandai area. In a similar manner, a member of the CPI(M) local committee and of the TYF was butchered by a group of armed NLFT extremists at Mendi under Salema police station of Kamalpur, Dhalai.

On January 8, NLFT extremists indiscriminately fired on a passenger jeep near Mandai market, leaving dead an SFI activist and an activist of the CITU-affiliated Tripura Motor Shramik Union, and injuring three others including a CPI(M) member of the village panchayat. On January 5, Comrade Damodhar Reang, a veteran member of the CPI(M)’s Dhumachhara local committee under Longthorai valley subdivision, was butchered by racist miscreants of the United Bengalee Liberation Force. On January 7, NLFT extremists kidnapped 9 employees and workers involved in railway construction in Tripura.

Vehemently condemning these killings, kidnappings and inhuman tortures, the CPI(M)’s state secretariat expressed the opinion that this spurt in attack on the Leftist forces, especially on CPI(M) activists, shows that the extremists are once again alarmed over the prospect of political isolation in the face of a growing symbiosis between the people and the Left Front for peace and progress. According to the CPI(M) statement, the vested interests have no other alternative but to give vent to their desperate attitude through barbaric and dastardly attacks on the persons who are in the forefront of the fight for the people’s and the country’s welfare. (INN)