Terror Campaign Continues

IN a bid to stall free and fair polls or falsify the mandate of the people, outlawed NLFT extremists kidnapped eleven innocent non-tribal villagers from Emrapasa under Kailashahar subdivision, North Tripura, on February 2 midnight. The NLFT is known as the underground wing of INPT that is the Congress party’s politico-electoral ally in Tripura.

These abductions are part of a sinister political plot to replicate in Tripura the ghastly pre-planned genocide of February 1988. At that time, about a hundred innocent non-tribal people were mercilessly done to death in the span of a week by the Bijoy Hrangkhwal-led TNV extremists on the eve of the state assembly polls. As has been amply documented, the genocide was carried out to vitiate the atmosphere and incite public opinion against the Left Front by fomenting ethnic frenzy in the state, in a bid to falsify the polls by inviting overtly draconian central intervention.

Now it is the same Bijoy Hrankhwal, the father of terrorism in Tripura who has now turned into a pseudo-politician, who is heading the INPT.

By sponsoring terror tactics against CPI(M) activists and supporters all over the state, this heinous alliance between the Congress party and the INPT has given extremist atrocities an added dimension on the eve of the February 26 polls in Tripura.

At about 12 a m on February 2, accompanied by a few miscreants from across Bangladesh, a group of NLFT extremists raided a house in village Emrapasa, in which the rehearsal of a play was going on in the presence of several people. Some of these extremists were clad in police uniform. These extremists segregated 16 people and tied their hands with ropes they had brought with them. Thereafter all the 16 were forced at gunpoint to run towards the Bangladesh border and 11 were held hostage in Bangladesh territory, as 5 had made good their escape under the cover of darkness.

Though the police promptly gave the extremists a hot chase immediately after receiving the information about the kidnapping, they could cross over by the time. According to villagers, a local Congress leader, Jyotirmoy Malakar, along with some other people, had paid a surprise visit to Emrapasa in a motor vehicle shortly before the extremist raid.

Vehemently condemning the incident of extremist kidnapping and demanding all possible and expeditious steps for rescuing the kidnapped, the CPI(M) state secretariat in a statement viewed this incident as the latest in the NLFT extremists’ campaign of terror sponsored by the Congress-INPT combine during the run-up to the assembly polls.

The party pointed out that this was but a part of the arson and intimidation being carried out in several outlying areas of Sadar subdivision in West Tripura and of Amarpur and Gandachhara subdivisions in South Tripura and Dhalai districts. The party statement then added that such violent atrocities, being carried out as a combined misadventure of mercenary militants and miscreants to violate the pre-poll scenario, perfectly fit in with the overall plot of the Congress-INPT combine. The latter has recently put forward to the Election Commission a demand for withdrawal of the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) from the hotspots of extremism in Tripura.

The CPI(M) urged the Election Commission to rise to the seriousness of the situation and take immediate steps for effectively combating the militants and their mentors with adequate military and paramilitary forces. It also demanded complete sealing of the 856-km long Tripura border with Bangladesh by the BSF, for the sake of free and fare polls in Tripura.

Meanwhile, the CPI(M) has filed written complaints to the concerned returning officer and to the police that NLFT extremists are carrying out raids on the CPI(M) activists’ and supporters’ houses at Malbasa panchayat area in Amarpur since January 31. At the instance of the local INPT candidate Nagendra Jamatia, the complaint added, these terrorists have severely beaten up 23 CPI(M) activists and supporters, issuing threats to them against any involvement with the CPI(M) and issuing dictates for joining the INPT and the election meetings of Nagendra Jamatia.

On February 3, the police arrested two notorious NLFT extremists from an election meeting of Nagendra Jamatia at Malbasa. These had been involved in numerous killings and kidnappings as well as armed encounters with the police. (INN)