Tripura militants planning violence ahead of assembly polls

The outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) is planning to indulge in violence before and during the next assembly elections due in February next year, a police officer quoted four surrendered extremists as saying on Sunday.

Four NLFT guerrillas who fled from their Bangladeshi hideout surrendered to the Border Security Force (BSF) on Saturday. The BSF handed over them to the Raishabari police station in Tripura's Dhalai district.

"The surrendered terrorists said they fled from their Bangladeshi camp last week. The NLFT leaders recently started recruiting new cadres to create violence before and during the next assembly elections. The four surrendered rebels are part of the newly recruited militants," Sub-Divisional Police Officer Jawahar Debbarma said here.

The militants told the police interrogators that the NLFT leaders in Bangladesh, supposed to provide them arms training, assured them that they could surrender after the next assembly polls and they would get government jobs.

"The NLFT leaders did not give any arms training to them. Instead, after their recruitment in April, they had been doing numerous work including cleaning in the camps in Chittagong hill tracts (in Bangladesh)," the police official said.

Meanwhile, Tripura Police are trying to get another arrested NLFT extremist, Naresh Chakma, 34, who is now in the custody of Assam police.

On August 12, the Government Railway Police (GRP) had arrested the NLFT rebel at Badarpur railway junction in southern Assam.

Over 600 cartridges were recovered from the extremist, a resident of Natun Bazar village in Gomati district in Tripura.

"Naresh also told Assam Police and GRP personnel that the NLFT has planned to incite violence in Tripura," another police official said on the condition of anonymity.

NLFT cadres undergo arms training in several hideouts in Bangladesh, which shares a 1,880-km border with India.

Banned in 1997, the outlawed outfit had sought Tripura's secession from India.