Eight tribal separatists arrested in Tripura

AGARTALA - Paramilitary troopers have apprehended eight heavily armed tribal guerrillas including a young woman in Tripura, officials said Saturday.

“During a counter-insurgency operation, Assam Rifles troopers Friday night detained eight dreaded terrorists of banned National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) in north Tripura’s Kanchanpur area,” said Assam Rifles spokesman Dinesh Thakur.

A large cache of arms and ammunition including US-made carbines and revolvers were recovered from the eight.

A senior police official said that the arrested separatists led by their self-styled “captain” Dube Reang fled from their hideouts in Chittagong Hill tracts of southeast Bangladesh earlier this week before sneaking into India.

The arrested guerrillas are being interrogated by senior police officials.

“After Bangladesh’s security forces launched a massive crackdown against the terrorists, a large number of extremists fled from their Bangladeshi hideouts and camps. They are either surrendering to Indian security forces or nabbed or taking shelter in a safer places in the neighbouring country,” a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, Border Security Forces (BSF) Inspector-General (Assam-Meghalaya frontier) Prithvi Raj told reporters in Meghalaya capital Shillong that the militants from the northeast are shifting their base from Bangladesh to Myanmar in the wake of the ongoing operations against Indian rebels by Dhaka.

According to Tripura police, about 360 members of the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and NLFT, including many carrying rewards of Rs.250,000 and with Interpol arrest warrants against them, have fled from their Bangladeshi camps and surrendered to Indian security forces this year.

The ATTF and the NLFT have been demanding independence for indigenous tribals and Tripura’s secession from India.

Militants belonging to various rebel groups in the northeast region had set up about 100 camps and hideouts in different parts of Bangladesh, specially Sylhet district and Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) bordering India’s Tripura, Mizoram and Meghalaya states.