People's Democracy

NLFT Extremists Gun Down CPI(M) Leader

Haripada Das

YET another CPI(M) leader has been gunned down by NLFT extremists in the far-flung sub-division of Gandachhara, Dhalai district on October 23, 2004. Comrade Gaganjoy Tripura, Party local committee member and president of the Tribal Youth Federation’s Gandachhara divisional committee, was returning from federation office to his house, not very far off from the market place. At about 9.30 a m, when Comrade Tripura approached near the roadside where the armed NLFT assailants were waiting in disguise, they shot him down at point blank range and, to be further sure of his death, the killers lacerated him with choppers on the road itself. Comrade Gaganjoy died on the spot.

During the chase to the assailants following the killing, a TSR jawan Santosh Debbarma was struck with an accidental fire from the rifle of one of his fellow jawans. On way to hospital, Debbarma breathed his last. This incident halted the instant move of the security forces and thus the extremists made good their escape.

Comrade Gaganjoy happens to be son of a martyr, Comrade Ananda Roaja, who was the Party state committee member and secretary of the Gandachhara divisional committee and also a central committee member of the Tripura Rajya Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP). The same NLFT extremist group had raided the house of Comrade Ananda Roaja, broken the door open and shot him to death on October 18, 1998. Earlier, during the Congress-TUJS coalition regime, three of his relatives, including Comrade Roaja’s son-in-law, were brutally killed by the NLFT in collaboration with the then TUJS miscreants.

The people of Gandachhara were terribly shocked when they learnt about the catastrophic annihilation of Comrade Gaganjoy Tripura, a beloved leader of both tribal and non-tribal people of the sub-division. Party leaders, workers, supporters and common people gathered at Gandachhara town in large numbers on hearing about the sad demise of their leader.

The people of Gandachhara bid farewell to their beloved leader in the afternoon on the same day, turning their deep sorrow into a strong determination to fight back the insurgency. Hundreds of people including Lalit Tripura, Party divisional committee secretary, Bana Bihari Saha, Sushanta Hazari, district secretariat members, Party workers and sympathisers paid floral tribute to the departed leader, and marched in his funeral procession to the cremation ghat.

The CPI(M) Tripura state secretariat, in a statement on October 23, termed the dastardly killing of Comrade Gaganjoy Tripura as a pre-planned political annihilation and strongly condemned it. The secretariat offered sincere condolence to the bereaved family members of the deceased. As Dasami festival was being celebrated all over the state on the day, protest marches were organised throughout the state on the next day in condemnation of this killing. A 24-hour bandh was also observed at Gandachhara sub-division at the call of the Party.

It is believed that the INPT, the political mask of the outlawed NLFT extremists, had engineered this killing through their accomplices in the jungle, with an eye on the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council election due in the first part of the next year, the Party observed. (INN)