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Ultras turn Khowai into killing field

The stench of bloated carcasses, smoldering huts and wails of women overwhelm visitors to Khowai sub-division, in carnage-scarred West Tripura.

Ironically, when drought-affected people in Gujarat and Rajasthan are crying for food and water, in the ghost villages of Bagber, Uttar Maharani and other adjoining hamlets in this land-locked northeastern state, nobody dares harvest their bounteous fields.

''Tribals backed by militants are harvesting our agricultural produce,'' says Sukumar Debnath, an inmate of the Kalyanpur school relief camp. The reign of terror by the ultras forced farmers like Sukumar to take shelter in the camps.

Smoke still billows from gutted remains in Bagber village, which witnessed one of the worst ethnic carnages of the state in recent times.

The series of ethnic clashes, from Friday till Sunday, had claimed 45 lives, mostly non-tribals, at Kalyanpur and Teliamura.

Mourning the death of two grandsons and a granddaughter-in-law, octogenarian Kumudini Debnath bursts into bouts of inconsolable cries. Narrating the bloodbath that left her an ''old orphan'', she asks, ''What was their fault? What wrong had they done?''

Kumudini is not alone in her grief at the Kalyanpur higher secondary school refugee camp. Niranjan Das (75) is dumbstruck since the killing of his two sons and daughters-in-law.

While visitors encounter heart-rending cries of the victims' relatives in 10 refugee camps in Kalyanpur, the carcasses of cattle strewn in and around Bagber, Uttar Maharanipur, Palparw and north Ghilatali bear silent testimony to the human brutality perpetrated on innocents.

Along with 45 men, women and children, about 100 cattle were killed in the three-day violence triggered by the United Bengali Liberation Front of Tripura, formed by Bengalis to retaliate against tribal guerilla attacks. UBLFT had killed five tribals and injured 11, hurling bombs on Saturday morning at the Khagendra colony at Teliamura.

The security forces Wednesday recovered the mutilated body of nonagenarian Bindu Basini Sarkar from a deserted pond. She was last seen guarding her only son's body for 48 hours since Saturday. Militants shot Mohan Sarkar.

Nobody came to help the woman and she had been reported missing since Sunday.

At least 25 men, women and children were killed by heavily armed tribal guerillas at a refugee camp at Niranjan Sardarpara, Kalyanpur, on Sunday night.

The violence-affected people took shelter at the relief camp, where the rebels struck, taking advantage of the absence of security arrangements.

There is a para-military camp a stone's throw from the relief camp, but the soldiers did not come to their rescue despite repeated requests, survivors alleged.

Many people are missing after the massacre. Though there has not been any fresh violence in three days in Kalyanpur and Teliamura, the security forces recovered many bodies from the River Khowai, paddy fields, ponds and ditches. A mass cremation was also organised by the authorities at Kalyanpur.

The militants even attacked a local ashram, where more than 500 people, including women and children, had taken shelter after their houses were burnt down. The camp inmates were preparing meals when the rebels struck. Tripura State Rifles soldiers forced the guerillas to retreat.

Bordering Khowai sub-division, with less than 300,000 people, it had turned into a killing field since December 13,1996, when outlawed guerillas massacred 26 men, women and children.

It was the biggest incident of violence since the 1980 June riots at Mandai, where according to official records 1400 people were butchered.

After the December 1996 incident, this culturally developed sub-division has witnessed a series of massacres.

Communist movement father figures and chief ministers Nripen Chakraborty and Dasaratha Deb have been elected to the state assembly several times from Khowai sub-division, a stronghold of the ruling Marxists.

In four years, at least 200 people, mostly non-tribals, have been massacred. The carnages forced the Left Front government to change its policy and promulgate the Disturbed Areas Act in a phased manner in 27 of 45 police station areas in the state. Army and counter-insurgency-trained Assam Rifles personnel were deployed in the 27 areas, though the Army was withdrawn during the Kargil conflict.

UNI

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