AGARTALA, May 1– Tripura People’s Democratic Forum, the political wing of the banned All Tripura Tiger Force, has alleged that the Tripura police were intimidating the relatives of insurgents to compel the outfit to sit for peace talks. In a press statement , a copy of which was given to PTI, the Front said it would negotiate only after three conditions were fulfilled by the government. “There was no point of joining the peace talks unless the conditions were fulfilled.”
The first condition was that those who entered Tripura after 1949 and whose names were not included in the voters’ lists of 1952 would be deemed foreigners. The second condition was that the UN would have to mediate and thirdly, the issue of sovereignty should be a point of discussion. TPDF president Ranjit Debbarma had on April 22 put forward these conditions for the peace talks. The father of the TPDF president, Krishna Debbarma in a statement broadcast by AIR on April 27 appealed to his son Ranjit to return to the mainstream as his involvement in insurgency was of deep concern to him. The TPDF alleged that Krishna Debbarma and other members of his family were being intimidated by plainclothes men to compel the ATTF to come for talks.