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It was a bloody Independence Day in Tripura this year with the outlawed All Tripura Tigers Force (ATTF) attacking two villages in West Tripura District, killing 30 people and injuring several others. In both villages, Borolunga and Daspara, each about 50 km from Agartala, the attacks were launched on the night of August 14 with sophisticated firearms and the victims were all Bengalis.
While attacks by militant and terrorist groups in the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir on Independence Day and Republic Days are not new, the one in Tripura marks a fresh upping of the ante. Pakistan's respon-ding to the Indian Prime Minister's peace initiative is also a factor behind the ISI's concentrating its efforts to motivate as many Indian insurgent groups of the North-East as possible, from Bangladesh, where its presence has increased exponentially ever since the Bangladesh National Party came to power. The ISI has been supporting anti-India activities by pushing more Bangladeshi migrants into the region, influencing ethnic Muslims towards fundamentalism and directing the North-East insurgent groups to keep the cauldron of terrorism boiling.
In the late 1980s, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was raised as the Tripura National Liberation Front and was considered a small group armed with tribal weapons like bows and arrows and a few firearms, the most modern of them being the century-old Lee-Enfield .303 bolt-action rifles, still held by State police forces. Along with the slight change in the nomenclature of this group, came a far deadlier change in its weaponry, aims and modus operendi. NLFT was not the only dissenting group in Tripura. The All Tripura Tigers Force (ATTF), raised just after the TLNF/NLFT, with support from the CPI(M) to counter it, too, progressed at the same pace. The NLFT is reportedly aligned with the Indigenous National Party of Tripura (INPT) and the Congress.
All this, in a State with a large tribal populace untouched by Western missionaries during the colonial era, but with a major influx from West Bengal and mostly surrounded by Bangladesh, makes for a problematic mix. The 900 km-long international boundary over tough terrain without fencing makes it ideal for insurgents to get sanctuaries in Bangladesh, from where the BDR-ISI combo can support them.
It was only after the ISI's entry into the North-East, facilitated by the ULFA leaders, in 1990-91, that the NLFT started getting consignments of AK-47 rifles and other offensive material from Bangladesh. The activities of the NLFT and the ATTF fall mainly in the categories of extortion, kidnappings, political killings and area- domination for tax-collection. Cargo vehicles plying between Silchar, in Assam's Barak valley region, to Agartala and other sub-divisions of Tripura, have to shell Rs 5,000 to 7,000 per vehicle, per trip. There are larger amounts for vehicles which need to stay there, depending on the duration. Tea-garden owners run the risk of being kidnapped for huge ransoms. And then, of course, there are political killings - the NLFT against the CPI(M) and others as well as the ATTF against the Congress and the INPT.
Both the NLFT and the ATTF are having internal problems, one of which is their cadres' surrendering to the security forces (SFs). This led to some of the surrendered cadres' relatives being abducted to "recover the cost of the weapon laid down", or being assassinated. The NLFT recently held a meeting to discuss the problem of "deserters" or those who surrendered, and talked about ways to keep a watch over them. The surrenders reflect serious differences between the upper and the lower rungs. The State Government and the SFs can exploit such situations, but till there is no permanent solution, the gaps by surrendered cadres will usually get filled.
The para-military and other forces deployed in Tripura are the Assam Rifles (the oldest of para-military forces), the BSF, the CRPF and the State police. From January to July 2003, the statistics of innocent civilians, SFs and extremists/ terrorists killed, injured, kidnapped or arrested, as the case may be, are as follows: 102 civilians, 17 security personnel and 19 extremists killed; 37 civilians 19 security personnel and one extremist injured; 111 persons kidnapped and 180 militants arrested by the SFs. Neutralising these militants is not easy, primarily because of the availability of hideouts in Bangladesh.
Efforts by the Ministry of External
Affairs have been in progress with the Bangladesh Government which has
been intransigent on matters of the Bangladeshi influx, sanctuaries and
terrorist camps there. Visits by the foreign ministers of both countries
since early 2003 has made little difference. On the ground, the situation
remains unchanged.
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