AGARTALA, May 6 – The breakaway Biswamohan faction of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) today surrendered before the Tripura Governor DN Sahaya. A total of 72 militants including 22 women cadres laid down their firearms in a formal surrender ceremony held at Arundhutinagar Police-line. The group was led by six top commanders of NLFT Biswamohyan faction – self -styled vice-president Kamini Debbarma, general secretary Mantu Koloy, finance secretary Bishnuprasad Jamatia, assistant finance secretary Dhanu Koloy, chief of army staff Benoy Debbarma and deputy army chief of the organization Sanjiv Debbarma.
They laid down 22 firearms and one grenade. Out of these arms three are SLRs, one AK 47, one Stengun and one carbine. Earlier, the NLFT leaders met Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani on April 15 and agreed to surrender en masse. They did not put forward any precondition for the surrender. After the surrender Mantu Koloy in a written statement said they were misguided to take up armed struggle. “Now we realize that constitution of India is an ideal framework to live with communal harmony and to ensure development especially of the weaker section”. The militants would now be rehabilitated as per government guidelines. They will now stay in a vocational training camp for the next 12 months. He then appealed all the militants including Biswmohan and Ranjit Debbarma of ATTF who are still underground to come overground and join the mainstream.
The Governor D N Sahaya and his three ministers –tribal welfare minister Jitendra Choudhury, Higher education and School education ministers Keshab Majumdar and Anil Sarkar made the similar appeal to the militants. Later, DGP Tripura GM Srivastava who played the key role to engineer a split in the organization and brought the most important section of the militants over ground denied that most of the insurgent cadres were ‘fake’.
“They are all trained militants”, he claimed. When pointed out that some of these militants like Kamini Debbarma and Dhanu Koloy had earlier also surrendered two or three times and went back to the jungle after lifting the government packages, the police chief indicated that this time they would remain under strict scanner.
“Since allegations were being made against one or two militant leaders, we have to look into the matter”, he said and added : You cannot ignore a militant when he comes to surrender. You have to take a stand. The DGP said that most of the militants could not either reach the state for surrender or lost their fire arms as the Biswamohan faction had ambushed the group in CHT , Bangladesh. In the encounter nine militants eager to surrender were also killed, he said. His claim had earlier been supported by Mantu Koloy. “Nevertheless, we are in touch with some other important underground leaders and hopefully very soon we shall be able to present them before you,” Srivastava said.