Apart from the casualties mentioned above, it may be added that the
administration and all services including health,
education, social welfare and implementation of poverty
alleviation schemes in the interior areas have come to a
total stop. Suffice it to mention that according to
official statistics tabled in the assembly, altogether 58
school teachers were kidnapped by so-called militants
between 1st April 1993 and 15th February 2000 and twenty
of them were gunned down by them. When the answer was
tabled in the assembly last year six were still in
militant custody and remaining 32 had managed to return
alive after their families paid huge ransom money. Even on
March 7 this year the skeletal remains of a kidnapped
school teacher was recovered by police from jungles near
Udaipur subdivision of South Tripura police. Sources said
the family of the slain teacher Haradahan Roy had made
payment of Rs 1.40 lakh as ransom, but in spite of that he
was killed. Another bizarre information that may be added
here as part of casualties of militancy is that so far
this year 32 dead bodies or skeletal remains have been
exhumed by police personnel on the basis of confessions of
nabbed militants from different parts of the state. All
these are kidnapped persons killed in militant custody.
This includes two male babies Nayan Das (4) and Jhuton Das
(3) who had been abducted at gun point from a passenger
jeep in South Tripura on November 15 last year. The
impoverished parents of the babies managed to collect and
hand over through a collaborator Rs 25 thousand to the
abductors and made a humanitarian appeal to scale down
their demand and release them. But the so-called militants
belonging to the NLFT shot dead both the babies-according
to one version one of the babies died of Malaria without
any treatment- and buried them in the jungle. This was
disclosed by a militant nabbed by officers and jawans of
Sabroom sub-division of south Tripura where the incident
took place.
Regarding the collapse of administration and economic activity what may be
added to the information given in the 'data' column is
that such development agencies as ONGC, rubber board and
NPCC have been forced to curtail their expansion work
because of militancy. Two ONGC engineers have so far been
killed and three kidnapped, though released later after
payment of ransom. As a result of insurgency ONGC can not
operate in Atharomura and Longtarai hill ranges as also in
Hararganj and Khubol sites in north Tripura. All these are
rich natural gas bearing zones. Similarly rubber board has
been forced to abandon two of their flourishing
plantations in south Tripura and Dhalai districts as a
number of their field officers were killed and kidnapped.
On January 7 this year nine railway construction workers
were kidnapped by NLFT militants from remote areas of
Dhalai district. They were released after intensive police
operations on February 22 but the morale of the workers
has been seriously impaired and work on the railway track
construction between Kumarghat and Agartala, vital for the
state's economic development, has been seriously affected.
Apart from this, all major roads in the state including
the national highway (NH-44) are vulnerable to militant
attacks and no vehicle can ply without heavy escort cover.
The situation today is one of all round despondency and frustration. The
ruling left front government has been doing
whatever is possible within its own resources but
the centre has taken the stand that it can only help the
state government and will not come directly into the
scene. This was made clear by Union Home minister Mr.
L.K.Advani during his visit to the state in the last week
of March last year. However, the state police have pulled
off a string of successful operations since August last
year and number of killings and abductions have come down
over the past ten months. But the situation will be back
to square one once the level of deployment of force is
reduced.
The ruling left front government has made repeated appeals to the militant
outfits to lay down arms and join the mainstream of life
through peace negotiations. The Chief minister Mr. Manik
Sarkar has also asserted that if the militants were keen
to hold negotiations with centre the state government
would render all possible help. But none of the militant
outfits has responded to the appeals. Recently Nayanbasi
Jamatia a dissident commander of NLFT who left the
outfit's hideout in Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh
in mid-February this year made significant disclosures. In
a fax message published in local daily 'Syandan patrika'
on March 19 Nayanbasi Jamatia said Assam Rilfles authority
sent two proposals to the NLFT high command through
Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) leaders, Mr
Debabarata Koloi and Ananta Debbarma for laying down arms.
But, the proposal was shot down by the NLFT high command.
Apart from this, Nayanbasi also disclosed that senior IPFT
leader Mr. Debabrata Koloi also met the prime minister Mr.
Atal Behari Vajpayee with the appeal that centre should
hold peace negotiations with NLFT. But, the news of this
was leaked out and it fell through much to the frustration
of lay cadres of NLFT now keen to return to normal life.
Mr Koloi, of course, denied the statement made by
Nayanbasi Jamatia. It is also believed that centre is
trying to persuade NLFT through leaders of IPFT to start
peace negotiations and the viability of declaring a
ceasefire in Tripura is also being seriously considered.
Official insurgency management in Tripura so far has remained confined to
administrative action through security forces and
clandestine persuasion.
To lay down arms when the TNV militants were wreaking havoc in the state
the then second left front government made repeated
appeals to them to surrender. But this made no impact as
TNV surpemo Bijay Hrangkhawal was keen to return through
an honourable settlement with centre. He got in touch with
the then Mizoram Chief minister Mr. Lal Thanhawala in 1987
to take up the issue with centre. Mr. Lal Thanhawala spoke
to the then Union Home minister Mr. Buta Singh and
informed Hrangkhawal by a letter that centre was not in a
position to help in the process but could do so only if a
Congress led government came to power in Tripura. Mr.
Hrangkhawal intensified his offensive, forcing the left
front to bring parts of the state under disturbed areas
act. But this also failed to make an impact. With the
rapid rise in violence on the eve of assembly polls slated
for February 2, 1988 the central government unilaterally
brought the entire state under the disturbed areas act on
the night of January 29 that year. The TNV hit squads
massacred 102 Bengalis during the week preceding the
polls. Finally a severe non-tribal backlash led to the
front's defeat in the assembly polls. Shortly after the
Cong-TUJS coalition government came to power the then
agriculture minister Mr. Nagendra Jamatia sent feeler to
TNV commanders and made Hrangkhawal sign an appeal to the
then governor K.V.Krishna Rao for a peaceful settlement.
In the last week of June the entire leadership was taken
by a BSF plane to Delhi and finally after two month long
negotiations the tripartite peace accord was signed on
August 10 1988, ending one bloody chapter in Tripura's
history.
As mentioned earlier better part of the All Tripura Tribal Force (A.T.T.F.)
militants also laid down arms after a bipartite peace
accord with the state government on September 1993 four
months after the third left front government had come to
power. But, the A.T.T.F.'s changed edition All Tripura
Tiger Force (A.T.T.F.) and National Liberation Front of
Tripura (NLFT) militants have so far turned a deaf ear to
repeated pleas of the state government to lay down arms
after a peaceful settlement through negotiations.
So far there has not been any initiative from NGOs also. The state
government over the past few years has been taking
increasingly tough administrative measures to curb the
militants after a spell of riots involving tribals and
non-tribals in Khowai sub-division of West Tripura in
February 1997 the state government brought six of the
state's altogether forty nine police station areas under
disturbed areas Act. By 1999 the number of police station
areas under the draconian act rose to 27.
Besides, army and Assam Rifles jawans were inducted for counter-insurgency
operations. Though army was pulled out of the state after
the outbreak of the Kargil war, 3 Assam Rifles battalions,
6 battalions of Tripura state rifles (TSR), 15 battalions
of CRPF continue to be engaged in counter-insurgency
operations. In addition, there are 11 BSF battalions to
guard the state's 856 km long porous border with
Bangladesh where the militant outfits of Tripura and other
states of northeast have a large number of camps and
bases.
In order to back the measures already taken the state government issued a
notification extending the provisions of the draconian
National Security Act (NASA) in January 2000. According to
information furnished in the budget session of the state
assembly (February 23rd 2001/March 16th 2001) out of
altogether 129 persons listed for booking under NASA 85
have already been arrested and 68 of them are tribals.
While replying to a query on the subject the Chief
minister Mr. Manik Sarkar said invocation of the
provisions of NASA had helped the state government keep
militants and their collaborators in custody as otherwise
they would have found it easy to obtain bail from courts.
Apart from this, state police after being modernised with a special
central grant of Rs 18 crore sanctioned by Union Home
ministry launched a vigorous pro-active offensive against
militant outfits last year. As a result, 53 militants
belonging to various outfits died last year. Another
component of the official insurgency management has been
surrender of militants by persuasion or through
application of force. Replying to a query on the subject
in the state assembly Chief minister Mr. Manik Sarkar who
also holds the home portfolio said that from April 10,
1993 to 31st December, 2000 altogether 5467 militants laid
down arms to the state government. In addition, till June
19 this year (2001) more than 150 militants have laid down
arms to security forces. But this seems to have made
little impact on the insurgent groups who continue to get
replenishment in the form of new recruits.
The role of civil society in putting up organised resistance against
militant depredations has so far been minimal..For the
impoverished tribals inhabiting the hilly interiors of the
state it is virtually impossible to resist the heavily
armed militants who perpetrate all kinds of atrocities on
them at gun-point. Similarly, non-tribal Bengalis, a
considerable percentage of whom are still first-generation
refugees, suffer from a basic insecurity psychosis and
have proved incapable of putting up any organised
resistance against the depredations of armed extremists.
When the process of forced displacement started first
during the days of TNV insurgency in the early eighties
and then again from April 1993 there was hardly any
resistance even though thousands of people continued to
lose their homes and hearths. This was firstly due to the
role of the state government led by the left front which
adopted and followed kit-glove policy to preserve its
tribal vote bank. The tendency among a large section of
urban middle class and economically affluent section in
the non-tribal Bengali community has been to purchase land
or house in Kolkata and to leave the state at the first
opportunity. The will to stand up and fight has been
singularly lacking. It was only in 1999 that Bengalis
living in mixed populated pockets, rural and semi-urban
areas formed rag-tag militant outfits under such banners
as United Bengali Liberation Front (UBLF) and Bengali
Liberation Army (BLA) which have so far killed about forty
innocent and unarmed tribal civilians by attacking them
with crude bombs. These groups have already disintegrated
in the wake of the state government's decision to float
armed village resistance parties (VRP) on the line of
Punjab.
The tribal people initially had a sentiment in favour of the militant outfits but in the face of relentless extortion, rape and gang-rape of their women and interference with their religious faith and practices by militants, particularly the NLFT group, they have also started resisting. Since October last year at least seven militants were lynched to death by the tribal villagers. What has angered the tribals most against the militants, specially NLFT, is the outfit's gun-point conversion drive to make all the tribals embrace christianity by force. The resistance is likely to grow as the moral degeneration among the militants is now complete and the realisation seems to have dawned on the tribals that they are the ultimate victims of an aimless and insensible ' liberation struggle’.