Terrorist taint on Tripura Trinamul Congress

AGARTALA, February 11: Tripura Upajati Gana Mukti Parisad, the ruling CPI-M's tribal wing, has charged the Trinamul state unit and the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity with forging a "clandestine alliance" with terrorist groups. TUGMP is worried over the manner in which the state's Opposition is maintaining a silence over the killing and attacks by armed insurgent groups. The TUGMP central executive committee, in its two-day meeting concluded here yesterday, approved the decision to launch an organised campaign in Tripura's hill areas to expose the rebels and the role of Opposition parties. The Parisad announced that it will launch a campaign in the hills in February and March to mobilise hill people's opinion against escalating rebel violence and political forces abetting the ultras. The Parisad feels the Trinamul was floundering to have a tribal base in Tripura's hill areas when the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura, the ruling group in the state's hill autonomous council, had taken the wind out of TUJS' sail. Both parties are trying to cash in on ultras' support. TUGMP also accused the IPFT of passing funds earmarked for tribals' development to the NLFT, which earlier helped the IPFT to capture power in the Hill Areas Autonomous District Council. "Council funds are being looted, with the ruling IPFT failing to furnish statements on funds' utilisation of over Rs 10 crore," a Ganamukti Parisad spokesman said. The spokesman added that it was the IPFT which was conspicuous by its silence over killing, terrorisation, abductions and extortions by the NLFT, in the Tripura Hill Autonomous Region. The council rulers failed to reopen even a single of the hundreds of schools earlier closed down under stepped-up rebel pressure in hill areas. Developmental activities have come to a halt in the hills following intensified rebel activities. TUGMP extended its support to the anti-NLFT stir already stepped-up by Jamatiya tribal community leaders. The parisad felt the opinion was being mobilised against ultras excesses in many of Tripura's hill areas. NLFT men held: :Four NLFT ultras, and nine collaborators, were arrested from Udaipur and Amarpur subdivisions yesterday. Nine NLFT collaborators were arrested in connection with the kidnapping of six villagers from Dataram area of South District's Udaipur sub-division on 6 February. IPFT complaint: Senior IPTF leader and the executive member of TTADC, Shridam Debbarma, said Jamatiya tribal community leaders were inciting violence in hill villages of South Tripura district in the name of a counter-NLFT campaign. Jamatiya activists were forcing villagers to desert their villages in south Tripura in the last few days, he alleged. Meanwhile, tribal villagers captured a NLFT activist, Bishu Debbarma, from the Jirania yesterday.