Comrade Harimohan Debbarma Passes Away

VETERAN Tripura Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP) leader and CPI(M) state committee member, Comrade Harimohan Debbarma, passed away on May 6 in his own house at Teliamura, West Tripura. He was 78, and leaves behind his wife, 5 sons and 3 daughters. Suffering a severe stroke, Comrade Debbarma had been hospitalised in Agartala on April 11. But with his condition deteriorating sharply, he was taken back to his home by his family members a few days back.

Deeply condoling the demise of Comrade Harimohan Debbarma, the CPI(M) state secretariat has respectfully remembered his contribution to the state’s struggle for peace, harmony and development as well as towards strengthening the party organisation. It conveyed the its sympathy to the bereaved family.

Comrade Harimohan Debbarma was given a tearful farewell by hundreds of his admirers, Party activists and leaders. Prior to the cremation at mid-day, CPI(M) Central Committee  member Bijan Dhar draped Comrade Debbarma’s body in Red Flag, which was followed by paying of floral tributes by several leaders of the Party, including Central Committee  member Aghore Debbarma, state secretariat member Bajuban Reang and Niranjan Debbarma

Born in 1926 and joining the GMP in 1945 through participation in the historic Janashiksha movement, Comrade Harimohan Debbarma came from a middle farmer’s family and took a vital role in the formation of the GMP throughout Teliamura  and Kalyanpur areas of Khowai Sub-Division, West Tripura. Subsequently inducted into the communist party, he had been a member of the CPI(M) ever since the party’s division in 1964. With an arrest warrant issued against him, he went underground during the Emergency. For his tireless work in defending ethnic harmony and struggling for tribal development as well as for comprehensive development of the state he was once incarcerated in jail, and went underground five times during the Congress  regime in the state. Elected uncontested head of the Village Panchayat 1978, he was a member of the first Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council in 1981. Due to his front running role in protecting peace and harmony, he was the target of several extremist attacks during the second Left Front Government in the state. He escaped death due to his absence from home on such occasions but the then TNV extremists killed five members of his family. He left his ancestral home because of extremists threat ever since the 1980 ethnic riot in Tripura.