Agartala, March 9: The comptroller and auditor general report, 2002-2003, tabled in the just-concluded session of the Tripura Assembly, has revealed that the 15 bullet-proof vehicles procured by the police for counter-insurgency operations are not bullet-resistant at all.
The vehicles continue to ply in the rebel-infested areas of the state, endangering the security forces.
According to the report, in 2001 the state police had acquired 15 bullet-proof Maruti Gypsy vehicles from the Union home ministry for Rs 65.14 lakh. The vehicles were then dispatched to the ordnance factory in Medak for equipping them with bullet-proof facilities.
Subsequently, the vehicles were collected by the police department early last year without testing the bullet-proofing capacity and deployed for insurgency operations for the safe movement of security personnel. The matter came to the notice of the auditors of CAG in May 2003.
When questions were raised by the auditors, the then director general police replied that since the ordnance factory also belonged to the defence ministry, checking before receipt had not been considered necessary.
In a separate incident on March 7, personnel of Sidhai police station in Sadar subdivision, led by officer-in-charge Rajendra Dutta, raided Ramshankar para village on the foothills of Barmura ranges and shot dead a listed All Tripura Tiger Force rebel Tailing Debbarma.
But the Opposition Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura has alleged that there was no encounter on Sunday night and Debbarma was shot dead in cold blood by the police. The party general secretary Rabindra Debbarma has demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.