Insurgency / Tripura

AGARTALA, January 21: National Liberation Front of Twipra militants have started snatching telephones installed in tribal households in the interior areas so that their movements cannot be reported to police. The tribals are also keeping silent for fear of reprisals. Officers of the telecom department came to know of the incidents from some tribals and made inquiries. Sources in the telecom department said in the first week of December, a group of armed NLFT rebels raided tribal houses having telephone connections in the Madhavpur area under Jirania police station and looted 18 telephone sets...

AGARTALA, January 19: The Border Security Force on Friday launched a special anti-insurgency operation 'Operation Sakriya' (active) to flush out militants and also to establish a sense of security among the people living in the border areas, reports UNI. Stating this, BSF's Tripura, Cachar and Mizoram (TCM) Frontier Inspector General Arvind Ranjan told newsmen that the week-long special operation would be conducted along the Indo-Bangla border with Tripura and in the terrorist prone areas. Senior BSF officials and battalion commandant would supervise the operations, which would continue...

AGARTALA, July 30: Eight persons including five police personnel have been injured in a clash with villagers in North Tripura district, police said on Thursday. Hundreds of villagers from Machhmare village armed with lethel weapons gathered before Penchartal police station on Wednesday night demanding immediate release of two villagers who were arrested on Wednesday itself under National Security Act (NSA) on the charge of inciting communal violence in the area. After being refused to entry to the police station, the villagers stormed the building and ransacked it. Tripura State Rifles (TSR)...

AGARTALA, July 24: Suspected All-Tripura Tiger Force militants attacked Autonomous District Council member Budhu Debbarma and three of his aides at Chebri in Tripura's Khowai sub-division yesterday. Another group of militants abducted two traders from Samcherra near Dharmanagar town in North Tripura. Police sources said Debbarma, who is from the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura, was heading for Tulasikhar from his home constituency of Champahaor when a group of rebels waylaid his vehicle. The Tiger Force rebels took Debbarma and his three aides, including his guard, to a nearby jungle and...

AGARTALA, July 23: NLFT militants kidnapped four Garo villagers and beat up several people in remote Khedornal village under Natun Bazar police station in South Tripura last night. The four abducted Garos were CPM activists. Police sources said the militants raided Khedornal at 7 pm, herded the villagers to a nearby field and indiscriminately beat them up. The rebels apparently "punished" the villagers for maintaining ties with non-tribals and going to the Natun Bazar market. The three injured were admitted to the Natun Bazar hospital. The four abducted persons have been identified as Korbuk...

AGARTALA, July 23: Seeking to avenge the massacre of over 100 of its activists recently, the Bru National Liberation Front yesterday mowed down 12 National Liberation Front of Tripura rebels at Saikarbari in Tripura's Dhalai district. Sources said a group of NLFT rebels had just sat down for breakfast when heavily-armed Bru militants raided their hideout in the thickly-wooded Saikarbari area. Twelve of the NLFT men were killed on the spot, while eight escaped by jumping into a gorge behind the camp. Caught unawares by the sudden raid, the NLFT rebels could not put up a semblance of a fight...

AGARTALA, July 16: Dogged by severe criticism for its alleged hobnobbings with tribal miscreants in highly sensitive areas, the CRPF, the largest deployed force in Tripura, has undertaken a new strategy in counter-insurgency operations in the state. The basic idea behind the new strategy is to make the force more people-friendly. The commandants of the CRPF battalions on Saturday held a high-level meeting which was attended by the DGP BL Vohra and IG, CRPF George C Podipara to assess the effectiveness of the revised strategy in counter-insurgency operations. The CRPF IG said the new strategy...

AGARTALA, August 22: The recent abduction of four Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) leaders by tribal insurgents has opened up another battle front for the church and the Sangh Parivar. But the event has a far reaching consequence in the Northeast where the church has been an important socio-political institution and the RSS gradually gaining ground. The authorities have been trying to say that the abduction of four RSS leaders from a remote area in North Tripura on August 6 was part of abduction menace indulged in by the insurgents. This claim has gained ground since the National Liberation...

NEW DELHI, August 20, 1999: The allies of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) have condemned outright the killing of its general secretary Dali Mungro. The Tripura People's Democratic Front (TPDF) president, Ranjit Debbarma, offered its "deep sympathies" to the NSCN(K), the Naga people and the bereaved family of the leader. Debbarma, in a statement made available to this e-zine, said his organisation would remember the efforts of Mungro towards unity of all revolutionary organisations of the region. The "cowardly" assassination of Mungro is sure to lead the process into rough...

AGARTALA, August 19: A Tripura government engineer, working at the Dambur hydel project of South Tripura district, has been released by the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) after nine months of captivity following payment of a heavy ransom, police sources said on Wednesday. Gurupada Guchhait, who had been abducted from the protected area of the project on November 27 last year, reported at the office of the power department at Amarpur at 10.30 pm on night and said the ultras had just released him. Guchhait had been suffering from different ailments during his nine-month captivity and is...