People's Democracy

PULLING the political mask off its face, the INPT masterminded the nocturnal kidnap of 9 CPI(M) activists and supporters on July 16, at Mendi village under Kamalpur subdivision in Dhalai district. On the other hand, extremists brutally killed yet another CPI(M) activist on July 15 in Rajdhar village under Longthorai Valley subdivision in Dhalai district, and one CPI(M) supporter on July 16 in Baijalbari village under Khowai subdivision in West Tripura district. All these incidents are part of a series of stepped-up NLFT attacks and atrocities on CPI(M) activists and supporters, especially among the state’s tribals who are rising in protest against insurgency.

It will be noted that the INPT is the overground political wing of the outlawed extremist outfit NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura). The INPT captured the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Committee (TTAADC or in short ADC) in May 2000 with the help of the NLFT’s guns.

On July 15 night, extremists belonging to the BNCT, an associate outfit of the NLFT, raided the shifting cultivation farm of Dhan Kumar Tripura (32), a CPI(M) activist and local leader of the DYFI-affiliated Tribal Youth Federation (TYF). The extremists picked him up from his house, located on the said farm in Rajdhar area, where he had been residing for the last few months with his wife and children. Then, taking him some way off and tying his hands and feet, the extremist brutally hacked him to death. The police recovered his body next day.

According to the CPI(M) and TYF that organised a vehement protest against such an extremist atrocity, Dhan Kumar Tripura was murdered because of his strong and uncompromising opposition to the extremist depredations.

At about 1 a m on July 16, NLFT gunmen raided the house of Baishnab Debbarma (60), a CPI(M) supporter and veteran activist of Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP), in Baijalbari, woke him up from sleep and shot him to death. These killers also attacked his son with guns as well as spears, and grievously wounded him. He was later hospitalised. The barbaric killing of Comrade Baishnab Debbarma sparked off intense anger and anguish in the entire area against the NLFT hitmen and their political mask, the INPT.

At about the same time, NLFT extremists and their accomplices raided Mendi village near Salema in Dhalai district, and kidnapped at gunpoint the CPI(M)’s local committee member Dwijen Debbarma along with 8 other GMP and TYF activists. The incident strengthened the local people’s spirit of resistance, bringing tremendous pressure on local INPT leader Narendra Debbarma. Reflecting this spirit, hundreds of angry tribal women reached his house next morning. Narendra Debbarma at first reacted by blatantly saying that those kidnapped would be released only if they quit the CPI(M). But, bowing down in face of mounting pressure, he promised that all of them would be released by 3 p m on the same day, thus once more exposing the INPT’s complicity in extremist atrocities. The extremists released all the 9 kidnapped persons in the afternoon. The victims were hospitalised, with one of them having sustained critical injuries.

The local people are also aggrieved over the inactivity of the Assam Rifles regiment in charge of security in this extremist-infested area. A protest meeting was held at Salema in the afternoon against the abduction of CPI(M) activists as well as against the political alliance between the Congress and the INPT, with an eye on the next assembly election in Tripura slated for February next.

Moreover, while targeting the pro-Left individuals in the state, the outlawed extremists are increasingly attacking the security forces personnel too, in a bid to demoralise them.

On July 19 afternoon, a group of unidentified extremist gunmen killed in an ambush a BSF deputy commandant and a jawan, and injured three other BSF jawans, near Behalabari under Khowai subdivision. Deputy commandant Kunja Singh was then on an inspection of the border outposts with a convoy of two vehicles. While he was passing through the hilly terrain from Paharmura to Karangichhera, the extremists fired upon the convoy from the top of a hillock near Behalabari, where they were lying in ambush. The deputy commandant and a constable instantly died inside the vehicles, while a driver and two other constables were injured. They were promptly brought to Khowai hospital. However, the extremists failed to loot any arms. The BSF DIC, the local CPI(M) MLA and the Khowai subdivisional officer visited the spot the same night, and assisted in the treatment of the injured who were later sent to G B Hospital, Agartala.

According to West Tripura district’s superintendent of police, both factions of the outlawed extremist outfit NLFT as well as the ATTF (the other outlawed outfit) are quite active in Khowai subdivision. Hence the outfit responsible for the July 19 ambush could not be immediately identified.

In a statement, the acting chief minister Anil Sarkar vehemently condemned the barbaric extremist ambush on patriotic security personnel, and expressed deep sympathy with the bereaved families and the injured. (INN)