People's Democracy

Extremists Intensify Violence In Tripura

IMMEDIATELY after the formalisation of an electoral alliance between the Congress(I) and INPT on April 18, extremists in the hills and miscreants in the plains have re-intensified their diabolic exercise aimed at hijacking the Tripura assembly elections due in the beginning of the next year. It will be noted that INPT is the overground political wing of the NLFT, an outlawed extremist organisation.

The exercise includes dastardly assassination of CPI(M) leaders, activists and supporters. It was as a part of this very game that the NLFT extremists killed on April 24 four persons of a family including a Ganatantrik Mahila Samiti leader and grievously injured another at Bishukumarpara under Champahaur police station in Khowai subdivision of West Tripura. This attack came hot on the heels on similar incidents at other places in the state on April 19 and 22.

At about 8 p m on April 24, a group of NLFT extremists in olive green uniform entered the house of Kiranmala Debbarma, and asked for some drinking water. Immediately after the extremists had drunk water from the hand of her 15 years old daughter Sibani Debbarma, they opened fire, killing on the spot Kiranmala Debbarma (50), her sons Binoy (30) and Uttam Debbarma (18) and her son-in-law Ramchandra Debbarma (36). Sibani sustained bullet injuries, and is now undergoing treatment in G B Hospital, Agartala.

Comrade Kiranmala Debbarma, CPI(M), was a leading activist of the Ganatantrik Mahila Samiti and was earlier the local panchayat’s chairperson. Her sons and son-in-law too were CPI(M) activists.

Earlier in the same month, extremists killed a 60 year old staunch supporter of the CPI(M) at Kumarghat, North Tripura on April 19, and butchered four at Takarjala, West Tripura on April 22.

On April 22, again, Ranabahadur Debbarma, a CPI(M) state committee member, suffered grievous injury in a bomb attack by unidentified miscreants at Khowai town. Three other CPI(M) activists as well as the 14 years old daughter of another party leader were also injured in the same attack.

In Takarjala area of Sadar subdivision of West Tripura, outlawed NLFT extremists butchered three active CPI(M) members on April 22, including a branch secretary after kidnapping four party members from Amarendranagar on April 21.

According to the details received, a group of 7 or 8 NLFT extremists raided the Amarendranagar panchayat area of Takarjala on April 21 afternoon, and kidnapped one by one from their houses the CPI(M)’s branch secretary and panchayat member Bikram Debbarma (45) and two other party and panchayat members called Suresh Debbarma (60) and Biskut Rani Debbarma (55). While holding these three captive, the extremists then went to the house of panchayat chairman Chandra Kumar Debbarma. As he was not present there at the time, and has been living elsewhere for a long time due to the extremist threat, the extremists kidnapped his wife and a CPI(M) member Mahamaya Debbarma (40). They then moved into the jungle along with these four captives.

When the local people went out in search of these four persons the following morning, they discovered the mutilated bodies of Bikram Debbarma, Suresh Debbarma and Biskut Rani Debbarma in a forest. The hands of each of them were tied behind and throat slit open with a sharp weapon. Mahamaya Debbarma is still untraced.

It has also been learnt that Soumendra Debbarma, brother of the kidnapped Mahamaya Debbarma, was also kidnapped by extremists a day later. After the minister of cooperation Niranjan Debbarma and West Tripura police superintendent rushed to the area, TSR jawans have been combing the area.

According to the local people, this group of NLFT killers, armed with sophisticated weapons, had been staying in the area for the last one month and a half. They had also let loose indescribable tortures on the innocent tribals after the withdrawal of Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel from Amarendranagar after the end of the February 21 parliamentary bypoll. Only a few hours before the April 22 extremist raid, TSR jawans had again put up a camp at Amarendranagar. The extremists, it has been learnt, had asked each of their captives to explain why the TSR had come.

In yet another attack on a stronghold of the Left and democratic movement in Tripura, extremists hurled a powerful bomb at Khowai town, West Tripura on April 22 night. The attack left five persons, mostly CPI(M) leaders and activists grievously injured. They included the Ranabahadur Debbarma, a member of the CPI(M)’s state committee. The house was hired by CPI(M) state committee member and Upajati Ganamukti Parishad Central Committee member Ranabahadur Debbarma. In fact, it was his life that was targeted. Extremists and their accomplices have made attempts on his life several times earlier, forcing him to forsake his own house at Tulashikar. He was held under TADA during the Congress-TUJS coalition regime (1988-93) for organising, alongwith late CPI(M) leader Ranjan Roy, a protest movement against the gang rape by certain Assam Rifles jawans at Ujan Maidan. Recently, extremists had been threatening him demanding that he should press for withdrawal of the TSR deployed by the state government in certain areas to combat the extremists.

Significantly, according to newspapers, some notorious NLFT extremists had held a secret meeting on March 19 in the house of Arindra Debbarma of the INPT, self-styled chairman of Amarendranagar panchayat. The meeting was presumably held to give shape to the extremist drive to torture and kill the CPI(M) activists and supporters in the area.

The CPI(M) state secretariat has vehemently condemned the dastardly assassination of Kiranmala Debbarma and three other CPI(M) activists of her family, as part of a heinous plot hatched for the run-up to the next assembly elections that are due in February 2003.

The CPI(M) has urged the state government to intensify its crackdown on the extremists and appealed to the people to extend all sorts of help for such a crackdown.

Ironically, the INPT recently submitted a memorandum to the Tripura chief minister, Manik Sarkar, asking him not to deploy the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) in the state and desist the state government from setting up the TSR headquarters at Takarjala. It had even the temerity to ask the chief minister to disband the village resistance groups formed at the state government’s behest.

Curiously enough, before the April 24 attack on Comrade Kiranmala Debbarma’s family, NLFT extremists had been mounting pressure for withdrawal of the TSR camp from the area. Also, minutes before the attack on her house, NLFT extremists had attacked the TSR camp two km away. It is suspected that while the TSR jawans were warding off the attack on their camp, probably another group carried out the dastardly assassinations. (INN)