72 Extremists Surrender In Tripura

 MARKING a milestone in the weakening of the separatist movement in Tripura, 72 members including 22 female cadres, of the outlawed extremist outfit NLFT (Mantu Koloi-Kamini Debbarma faction) surrendered and laid down their arms and ammunition to the state government.

A ceremony was organised on this occasion in the sprawling precincts of the Arundhatinagar Police line here on May 7. The extremists returned to the mainstream in pursuance of the tripartite treaty signed on April 15 in New Delhi with the state government and the central government as signatories. Negotiations for the similar surrender of the NLFT (Nayanbasi faction) have been set in motion after the tripartite cease-fire treaty was signed on the same date and venue.

Among the speakers at this ceremony were Governor D N Sahay, acting Chief minister  Anil Sarkar and his cabinet colleagues Keshab Majumder and Jitendra Chowdhury. The Director General of Tripura Police was among the prominent participants in the ceremony which drew as spectators a sizeable section of the peace loving populace of Tripura from far and near. The ceremony sent forth a fervent call for the still-misguided militants to return to the mainstream and join the on going process of peace, progress  and prosperity in Tripura.

FRUSTRATION REIGNS SUPREME

The extremists in the state are presently a frustrated lot with the state government’s three pronged strategy in tackling this menace being largely successful. The strategy basically comprises of ideological, administrative and developmental counter-attack on insurgency. After the foiling of the heinous conspiracy of the Congress–INPT combine to hijack the state Assembly polls at the gun points of the INPT’s outlawed underground wing NLFT, the extremists received a severe jolt. Their frustration has risen to a frenzied pitch ever since the vertical split of the INPT and its ouster from power at the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council by the breakaway party NSPT with outside support from the Opposition CPI(M) late last year.

Now with the ongoing peace rush coupled with the continual rush of killing or capturing of the outlawed extremists of Tripura in encounters with the police and para-military forces – who are largely tipped off by the tribals of the state – the extremists sheltering in sanctuaries in Bangladesh territory are very frustrated. According to informed sources at the state’s Indo-Bangladesh border, in the last week of April, around 19 members of the outlawed NLFT (Biswamohan faction) fled their camp with arms at Chittagong hills tracks near Mayanama. After and crossing over in to Tripura, they contacted the state administration to facilitate their surrender. However other members of the same faction gave a chase to these 19 members, and a bloody battle ensued somewhere near the Tripura-Mizoram border near Chittagong Hill tracks in Bangladesh. The sources said that at least 9 of the deserters of the camp were killed in the fighting, but the casualties on the other side had not yet been ascertained. The surviving deserters have since dispersed here and there. It is clear that despite such desperate attempts, the extremists are going to be routed from the state of Tripura with people’s cooperation.

CPI(M) STATE COMMITTEE CALL

The CPI(M) state committee, which met on May 8 in Agartala, while expressing satisfaction over the surrender of 72 extremists has called upon the peace-loving people of the state to keep mounting pressure on other extremists to follow suit and end their barbaric violence. It also stressed that pressure must be exerted on the central government to smash the extremist training dens in Bangladesh.

The Party state committee reviewed its efforts to assist the administration in combating the enteric diseases presently raging in certain remote areas of the state. It also decided to gear up the organisation for ensuring a massive mandate for the Left Front in the upcoming Panchayat polls.

The state committee meeting at the outset paid its profound respects to poet Rabindranath Tagore on the occasion of his 144th birth anniversary on May 8. It paid homage to the memory of the recently departed veteran member of the CPI(M) state committee and Upajati Ganamukti Parishad leader, Comrade Harimohan Debbarma, and the Party’s Khowai divisional committee member Comrade Haridas Debbarma.

Even while calling upon the extremists belonging to the NLFT (Biswamohan faction) and the ATTF to eschew the barren and barbaric ways they have been resorting to through trans-border terrorism from their sanctuaries in Bangladesh territory, the Party warned the state ppulace not to let their guard down. It called upon them to continue their united politico-ideological peace offensive against insurgency and much more closer coordination and cooperation among the people, the police and the para-military.

The unanimous opinion of leading dailies and defense analysts of Bangladesh that the huge cache of arms, ammunitions and explosives seized in Chittagong sea port of Bangladesh on April 1 is that they were intended for the extremists of north east India. This, the Party said, must be an eye-opener to the enormous international network that uses Bangladesh for arms supply to the extremists of north east, including Tripura. Hence the people of that must put pressure on the central government to demolish the dens of the Indian extremists sheltered in Bangladesh territory and extradite them to our country, the Party stated.