People's Democracy

TRIPURA

 INPT Activists Attack Police Jawans 

CAUGHT between isolation from people on the one hand and operation of the security forces on the other, it appears the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) has set up a group of miscreants as the second line of defence and support for the extremists. The INPT is known as the political mask of an outlawed extremist organisation called the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT).

The INPT game to try falsify the ensuing assembly elections in Tripura is well known --- in the same way as the erstwhile Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) falsified the May 2000 elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC). In fact, it was the same IPFT that was rechristened as INPT after the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS), erstwhile ally of the Congress party, merged with it. It was this usurpation of the ADC by the IPFT, with the help of NLFT, guns that prompted the Congress party to strike an alliance with the INPT, in a bid to hijack the ensuing Tripura assembly polls.

On January 20 afternoon, some INPT miscreants and NLFT extremists set afire a wooden bridge at Naliayabari under Champahour police station of Khowai subdivision in West Tripura. It was clearly a part of their pre-poll bid to prevent the security forces from undertaking counter-insurgency operations, by snapping road links. Earlier on, they had twice attempted to set aflame a similar bridge near Gopalnagar in Khowai.

Following the arson attempt on January 20, the officer in charge of Champahour police station and a sub-inspector rushed to the spot with some security force. While the officer in charge was looking after the safety of the fire brigade personnel who were busy extinguishing the fire, sub-inspector Shyamal Debbarma caught a young man involved in the arson. It was then that a group of INPT activists attacked Debbarma with sharp weapons in a bid to snatch away the culprit.

In a pre-planned bid to prevent the police from carrying out their duties, INPT activists brought some women to the front and took cover behind them to secure the release of the arrested culprit. In the descending darkness of dusk and, taking advantage of the unavoidable inability of the police to retaliate, they grievously injured Syamal Debbarma and hacked his hands with sharp weapons, with an intention to kill him. They also hacked the hand of a jawan of the Tripura State Rifles (TSR). The police had to fire a few rounds in the air to disperse the frenzied INPT activists. According to West Tripura superintendent of police, this was a deliberate attack on the life of Shyamal Debbarma who had recently led some successful raids to nab the extremists’ accomplices.

Meanwhile, in a pre-dawn encounter on January 20, acting on a tip-off received the previous night, TSR jawans foiled an extremist plan to strike in the Killa police station’s jurisdiction in South Tripura. After setting out at night, when these jawans reached Thumbari near Amarpur, South Tripura, at 5 a m, NLFT extremists opened fire. The jawans then retaliated. Following the exchange of fire for a long time, the extremists made good their escape into the dense jungle of Baramura hills. A searching of the spot recovered some articles of extremists’ use and some incriminating documents.

Faced with the counter-insurgency operation of the security forces and a massive erosion of their support bases, the Congress and the INPT are going on disrupting normal life unabated at several places statewide. At the same time, an exodus from the camp of the Congress-INPT combine is taking place because of the exposure of their anti-people motive that led to such an alliance between the outlawed extremists’ overground wing, the INPT, and the rabidly anti-tribal Congress party.

On the other hand, the second phase of the Left Front’s election campaign went on in full swing, with the Left Front camp swelling with newer and newer supporters. On January 20, many families openly severed their ties with the Congress and joined the Left Front campaign programmes in all the constituencies in Sonamura subdivision in West Tripura district. Many tribal families quit the INPT too and came to the CPI(M)’s divisional headquarters of Kanchanpur in North Tripura. They also declared their commitment to do their best from now on, towards the formation of a fifth Left Front government.  

TERROR ATTACKS ON THE LEFT 

STUNG by an effective election campaign for the Left Front candidates and by the enthusiastic response the campaign is getting from the people of Tripura, including a sizeable section of the erstwhile support bases of the Congress-INPT combine, mercenary militants and miscreants are now on the prowl to run a terror campaign against the CPI(M) leaders and activists. This is natural, as this is now the sole hope of this unholy alliance in the face of an increasing exposure of its criminal and anti-national character. Since the announcement of the assembly poll schedule on January 11 till date, outlawed NLFT extremists, the underground wing of the INPT, have killed 9 CPI(M) leaders and activists, besides almost daily incidents of extremist attacks on the CPI(M) at several places in the state.

At dusk time on January 22, supported by armed BNCT extremists who are a B team of the NLFT, INPT miscreants went to the house of CPI(M) local committee member and village panchayat chairman Paresh Debbarma at Takehhaia village under Khowai subdivision, West Tripura, and inquired whether he had collected money as per the NLFT instructions. Being told that he had not, the extremists began to beat him up. When his wife intervened, they opened fire to kill him and struck him on the head with a stick. On hearing the gunshot, the neighbours informed the police. Debbarma was moved to Khowai hospital at night and later on to G B Hospital, Agartala, with bullets in his back.

Earlier, shortly after noon on the same day, NLFT extremists went to the house of Bahadur Debbarma, a local CPI(M) leader at Bellari in Khowai. Failing to find him there, they kidnapped his brother and activist Suraj Debbarma whose son NLFT extremists had killed last year.

Alongwith the atrocities the extremists and their INPT accomplices are busy perpetrating in the hills, the Congress is drawing on its criminal connections in the plains of Tripura. On January 22 evening, the police and CRPF arrested a Home Guard member named Bhajan Rudrapaul at North Agartala while he was illegally carrying a country-made pistol and 6 rounds of cartridges. After extensive interrogation, the police recovered from his house a .22 calibre revolver and 4 cartridges. While further interrogation of this Home Guard member was going on, Congress legislator Dipak Roy lodged a complaint with the local police station and with the superintendent of police to the effect that Bhajan Rudrapaul had been kidnapped. Local people, however, alleged that the Congress legislator had instructed this close aide of his to vitiate the pre-poll scenario.

Meanwhile, a joint police-BSF patrol to counter infiltration of miscreants from across the Indo-Bangladesh during the run-up to the ensuing assembly polls, led to the arrest of two Bangladeshi nationals at Birampur village under Dhanpur constituency of Sonamura subdivision, West Tripura. The patrol party arrested these persons, aged 35 and 28, with a motorcycle registered in Bangladesh, a mobile phone and Rs 965 in Bangladesh currency. Incidentally, chief minister Manik Sarkar is contesting from this constituency. (INN)