People's Democracy

TRIPURA

Terrorist Depredations Continue

ON May 6 midnight, NLFT extremists and their collaborators committed yet another ghastly mass killing at Satchhari under Sidhai police station in Sadar subdivision, West Tripura district. 

At about midnight on May 6, when the villagers at Satchhari, a remote hamlet close to the Bangladesh border, were deep asleep, outlawed NLFT extremists launched an attack on them in collaboration with their overground accomplices, killing a total of 21 innocent people and injuring 6. While the extremists were disguised in uniforms and carried sophisticated arms, their collaborators had their faces covered with black cloths and carried lethal weapons. The killers first set the villagers’ huts afire and, when the inmates rushed out for life, fired upon them and killed them by choppers one by one. While 17 people fell down on the spot, 8 others, struggling for life, were taken to G B Hospital, Agartala. Four of them expired in the hospital, including Suradhani Sarkar and Sanjoy Sarkar who died on May 8.

The victims included 5 women and 7 children from 17 days to 8 years.

The 21 dead belonged to half a dozen families, including that of Pramode Sarkar, a CPI(M) local committee member, who lost his wife and two sons. He himself is now in hospital. All the families are economically weak and live by manual labour. The villagers of this hamlet are known as staunch supporters of the CPI(M).

The families of Pramode Sarkar, Kumode Sarkar, Ritu Mohan Sarkar, Dhananjoy Sarkar and Swapan Mallik have lost 3, 2, 5, 5 and 4 members respectively. Of Swapan Mallik’s family, all members but one were killed; a three months old baby is the lone survivor.

On May 8, the Left Front Committee organised a dawn to dusk Tripura bandh in condemnation of this mass killing, and to demand the deployment of requisite security forces and proper manning of the international border. Another demand was that the central government bring diplomatic pressure on the Bangladesh government for dismantling the extremist camps inside its territory. While condoling the deaths, the Left Front Committee observed that after the electoral rout of the Congress-INPT alliance in February, their sponsors, i e the NLFT and BNCT extremists, have out of desperation and in reprisal stepped up their barbaric depredations.

The main targets of these attacks are the Left Front’s and especially the CPI(M)’s leaders, workers and supporters. Since March 1 this year when the election results were declared, 36 CPI(M) members and supporters have been killed in the state. A good number from the CPI(M) supporting families, including children, have been kidnapped. Extremists have driven out more than 600 tribal families, all CPI(M) supporters, from their hearth and home through inhuman torture and death threats. After the masses rejected the Congress-INPT alliance’s evil attempt to stole its way into power with the help of NLFT guns, the combine is now trying to mislead the people by raising the demand for the chief minister’s resignation.

The statement recalled that, by withdrawing a large chunk of the security forces from the state, the central government has widened the scope for these anti-national extremist groups to carry on such barbaric attacks.

The dead bodies of the ill-fated Satchhari villagers were cremated at the outskirts of their village in the presence of party and Left front leaders, the police jawans and civilian officers of the government amid Tripura bandh.

IN RADHANAGAR & MOHARCHHARA

But this was not all. Only 8 hours after taking 19 lives in Satchhari village, extremists killed a Left Front supporter Nilimesh Pal and his wife Alpana Pal, and kidnapped 3 villagers, at Radhanagar under Fatikroy police station in North Tripura district.

Then, at about 8.40 p m on May 7, the same extremist outfit carried out another major mass killing at Moharchhara, a market place under Kalaynpur police station in Khowai subdivision of West Tripura district, killing 9 innocent people on the spot and grievously injuring 4 others.

Moharchhara is an important rural market on the Teliamura-Khowai road. It was only a little after 8 in the evening on Wednesday, the market day in Moharchhara, when the people were thinning out and the villagers and traders were preparing to go back to their houses. But that was the moment when NLFT gunmen appeared and, without leaving the people any chance to guess what was going to happen, began to spray bullets indiscriminately from their automatic weapons. Then they disappeared under the cover of darkness. Their mode of operation reveals that they had come neither to loot the market nor to kidnap anybody, but to pump out the bullets they had on innocent people. Nine people fall down on the spot and 4 others received fatal injuries. The persons killed were Kamal Das (25), Chittaranjan Das (60), Kalicharan Nama (35), Jagadananda Das (65), Satish Shil (45), Annada Charan Das (45), Harimohan Sarkar (38), Amulya Das (45) and one not yet identified. Most of the victims belonged to the scheduled castes. The injured were shifted to G B Hospital, Agartala, next morning.

Local CPI(M) leaders and workers rushed to the place just after the  incident and plunged in rescue and hospitalisation work. Ministers like Manik Dey, Subodh Das and Sukumar Barman, party leader Jitendra Sarkar and area MLA Samir Deb Sarkar visited Moharchhara next afternoon and heard about the incident from eyewitnesses.

With these killings, the tally of the victims in three separate attacks from May 6 midnight to May 7 evening, went up to 32. That so many people have been killed within such a short span of time is unprecedented.

On May 7, the assembly unanimously passed a resolution condemning these attacks. Later in the same afternoon, led by deputy speaker Subal Rudra, an all-party delegation of legislators visited the killing place in Satchhari.

EARLIER TERRORIST DEPREDATIONS

Earlier, at about 7.30 p m on April 20, a group of 20-25 NLFT extremists and INPT miscreants raided the house of a CPI(M) leader Amarchan Debnath at Keprampara, a few kilometres from Agartala. Among the group, 6 or 7 were dressed in olive green uniforms and wielded firearms while the others had sharp weapons with them. A ceremony was then underway in the house. The gang at first kicked away the materials of the ceremony and then kidnapped Amarchan Debnath’s five years old daughter as well as the seven years old son of a lawyer called Chittaranjan Debnath. They also kidnapped the domestic attendant of the house and the 15 years old daughter of Ramani Mohan Debnath, but the latter was released a short while later and the former a few days after. The police launched a massive combing operation to recover the kidnapped children. 

According to local police, defeated Congress candidate and former chief minister Sudhir Ranjan Majumder, defeated Congress candidate for the local assembly constituency Smt Laxmi Nag and a few selected local Congress and INPT leaders held a secret meeting in the village a day before the incident. The villagers alleged that the plot to kidnap the two children was hatched out here.

Still earlier, on April 14 morning, a group of NLFT extremists raided a house at Birkumar Roazapara under Longthorai Valley subdivision in Dhalai district and picked up a 29 years old tribal. A little way off, they shot him to death and then burnt off the dead body after gathering the villagers at gunpoint and threatening them with death against informing the police.

A few days later, under the cover of darkness, a group of 3 or 4 extremists entered the house of Ranjit Debbarma (31), a member of the Tribal Youth Federation, and shot him dead on the spot. He was also a spirited cultural front activist.