People's Democracy

Some More Lives Terrorism Claims

ON February 3 and 4, the continuing terrorist violence in Tripura claimed the lives of some more innocent people. At about 1 a m on the day, terrorists belonging to the so-called National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) raided the house of a staunch CPI(M) supporter, Rajendra Tripura, at Taraban Colony under Gandachhara subdivision in Dhalai district, and forced him out towards a jungle, setting aflame on their way the houses of two other staunch supporters of the party. Dragging Rejendra Tripura to the fringe of the forest and the colony, the extremists barbarically butchered him with sharp weapons. Local people allege that, aided and abated by INPT general secretary Rabindra Debbarma, who is contesting from the 44-Raima Valley assembly constituency in Gandachhara, armed NLFT extremists have unleashed a campaign of terror, arson and killings, designed to cow down the CPI(M) leaders and activists.

Again, at about 8.00 p m on the very next day, a group of NLFT extremists, along with their BNCT associates as well as INPT miscreants, carried out an attack on the houses of 25 CPI(M) leaders and activists at Natun Dalapatipara in Gandachhara. Here they brutally shot down the CPI(M)’s branch secretary Bikramda Tripura (35) and severely beat up 25 others. Out of the latter, 5 including the party’s local committee member and former panchayat chairman Brajamohan Tripura (70) were hospitalised with critical injuries. Other CPI(M) activists were later discharged after first aid.

At about 9.00 p m the same day, vengeful NLFT extremists along with INPT miscreants raided the house of Kal Chandra Debbarma (80), a veteran activist of the Tripura Rajya Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP in short), at Laxman Sardarpara under Takarjala assembly constituency of Bishalgarh subdivision in West Tripura. The extremists inquired about his nephew, Budhu Debbarma, a CPI(M) activist who had defied the NLFT threat and joined the march of his compatriots when the CPI(M) candidate Baijayanti Kalai went to file the nomination papers earlier on the day. Though Budhu Debbarma and other inmates of the house escaped the impending death in time, these raiding extremists brutally did to death Kal Chandra Debbarma and his five years old granddaughter who was then asleep. 

It will be noted that over the preceding few days, besides issuing death threats to the people against any involvement with the CPI(M) and dictates for joining the INPT, NLFT extremists also set aflame six bridges on the three main roads from Takarjala to Bishalgarh subdivisional headquarters. Yet a massive march of men and women accompanied the CPI(M)’s candidate Baijayanti Kalai from Takarjala to Bishalgarh on the day the nomination papers were filed.

For a few days before February 4, accompanied by armed NLFT extremists, Nagendra Jamatia had also been threatening the CPI(M) activists with death in case they did not join the INPT or did not participate in his election meeting at Ampi on February 4. It will be noted that Nagendra Jamatia is the INPT candidate from Ampinagar assembly constituency of Amarpur subdivision in South Tripura, and had been a minister in the 1988-93 Congress-TUJS coalition regime, in the TUJS quota.

On February 4, after Jamatia’s meeting ended at about 7.00 p m, NLFT extremists and INPT miscreants severely beat up, at Ekjancherra, a CPI(M) activist Kancharay Reang and Segun Bahadur Malsum, a member of the DYFI-affiliated Tribal Youth Federation. This was a bid to kill these persons for their absence from the meeting. The assailants left the place only when their victims fainted, taking them for dead.

While vehemently condemning these incidents of dastardly and diabolic extremist attacks, the CPI(M) state secretariat urged the state government to prevent such heinous and vengeful violence spearheaded by the Congress-INPT combine, and nab the culprits. The party expressed firm hope that the desperate barbarities of the Congress-extremist alliance would miserably fail to break the barricade of people’s unity and foil the combine’s cynical conspiracy against democracy and development in Tripura.

Incidentally, till February 7, that is, in less than a month since the Election Commission of India announced on January 11 the poll schedule for the Tripura assembly, extremists of the NLFT --- the outlawed underground wing of the INPT that is in alliance with the Congress party --- had barbarically done to death 25 CPI(M) activists, supporters and their family members. The method in this madness is that militants have systematically stepped up their pre-planned campaign of terror during the run-up to the assembly polls, on behalf of the unprincipled Congress-INPT combine.

Subsequently, at a press conference held at Kailashahar (North Tripura) on February 16, CPI(M) divisional committee secretary Gopesh Debnath detailed how the Congress-INPT combine has criminalised itself. With the CPI(M) state secretariat member Tapan Chakraborty by his side, Debnath informed newsmen that state Congress president Birjit Sinha, who belongs to Manipuri community and is a candidate for Kailashahar seat, and Debashish Sen who is the Congress candidate for Chandipur, have been holding secret nocturnal meetings with PLO extremists from Manipur.

Debnath also told the press that the CPI(M) has lodged specific complaints with the Election Commission against Birjit Sinha for violation of the electoral code of conduct, including the holding of election meetings at places of religious worship and the distribution of dolls to entice voters.

The CPI(M) has also complained to the returning officer that at about 5.30 p m on February 16, Mulukchand Debbarma (executive member of INPT-ruled ADC) made a direct contact with NLFT extremists for armed intervention in the polls. In the afternoon on the day, Debbarma went to Nasib Ali’s house at Malaya village bordering Bangladesh. Leaving his car there, he then went to Kamaluddin’s house in the same village. A few minutes later, his companion (a tribal youth) crossed the river with Kamaluddin and entered Bangladesh. About an hour later, Kamaluddin returned with a Bangladeshi national and, alongwith Salauddin, another youth of the village, headed for Ambassa (Dhalai district’s headquarters) via Kamalpur in Debbarma’s car. Debbarma’s earlier companion, that tribal youth, stayed in Bangladesh.

To recall, Mulukchand Debbarma is an INPT leader and is one of the accused in a case of treason. He is charged with sending, in August 2001, 63 college students of Agartala to NLFT camps in Bangladesh for arms training with a view to overthrowing the Left Front government.

According to border sources, Debbarma sent later the same tribal youth to Rajkanta Debbarma. This notorious NLFT extremist resides in the house of Brajanath Debbarma, a Bangladeshi national of Tailing village bordering Tripura.

Earlier, on February 15, the CPI(M) also lodged a specific complaint against the illegal activities of Nagendra Jamatia, INPT candidate for Ampinagar assembly seat. The CPI(M) has demanded action against NLFT extremists who are torturing CPI(M) activists and supporters, torching their houses and threatening voters with death in case they don’t vote for Jamatia. Sachindra Debbarma, CPI(M) candidate for Ashrambari seat in West Tripura has lodged a similar complaint against INPT nominee Amiya Debbarma for using armed NLFT extremists to terrorise CPI(M) supporters.

At places, BNCT extremists are carrying out a similar campaign. At about 6.30 p m on February 15, a group of 14/15 BNCT extremists raided the house of Rabi Barma who had attended with his whole family a Left Front rally at Maharanipur (Khowai), defying the extremist threat. The extremists severely beat him up and then kidnapped his son Subhash (15). On their way back, they also beat up Ganesh Barma and threatened the villagers against exercising their franchise. Family members found the bullet-ridden body of Subhash next morning, with “BNCT” inscribed on it with a sharp weapon.

In another case on February 16, NLFT extremists kidnapped two CPI(M) supporters from Tuichamongkarai Para in Sadar subdivision, West Tripura. Here the terrorised members of 35 to 40 families have fled their homes.

The latest terror campaign reminds one of the sequence of events that led to the institution of a five years long semi-fascist jungle rule of the Congress-TUJS combine in Tripura during 1988-1993. It was in February 1988 that a secret pact of the Congress party with TNV extremists, precursors of the NLFT, resulted in the killing of more than a hundred innocent people in Tripura at the hands of the TNV, and then, using it as a pretext, the centre imposed the disturbed areas act in the state. All this helped the Congress and TNV achieve their purpose --- an unprecedented falsification of the people’s mandate with the help of extremists on the one hand and under the shadow of the army on the other. In a similar manner, inhabitants of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC in short) have been experiencing the INPT’s tremendous corruption and mismanagement since it usurped the ADC with the help of NLFT guns in the May 2000 ADC elections. (INN)