annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Tripura
surrender ceremony. Earlier, 72 members
of the NLFT (Montu Koloi faction)
surrendered. 1 On 15 April 2004, two
factions of NLFT respectively led by
Nayanbashi Jamatiya and Montu Koloi
signed a tri-partite agreement with the
Centre and Tripura governments. 2 Under
the agreement of 17 December 2004, the
state government agreed to withdraw all
cases against them except those relating to
crime against women. A special package
worth Rs 55 crore was approved for
development of the tribal areas. The
government also agreed to formulate a
special rehabilitation package for the
surrendered cadres beyond the normal
surrender scheme. 3
Although the Borok National Council
of Tripura (BNCT), NLFT faction led by
Biswamohan Debbarma and All Tripura
Tiger Force (ATTF) did not sign any
ceasefire agreement, the incidents of
violence by the non-State actors have
reportedly gone down by 40 per cent in
2004. There was also decrease of killing
by 61 percent by the armed opposition
groups with 67 killings in 2004 in
comparison to 172 killings in 2003. 4
The security forces were responsible
for torture and extrajudicial executions.
On 28 March 2004, Deputy Inspector-
General of Police (Range) Akhil Kumar
Shukla reportedly issued a circular
directing Officers-in-Charge of police
stations in Tripura to refrain from
disseminating any information to the
media or to any other quarter about
encounter killings in the midst of
230
allegations of extrajudicial killings. 5 The
State government failed to make the
reports of inquiries into the extrajudicial
executions of Rathojoy Jamatia and
Biswas Singh Malsom on 20 December
2003, Subodh Debbarma on 14 March
2004 and Ramesh Debbarma on 31
December 2003 public.
The armed opposition groups were
also responsible for gross violations of
international humanitarian laws including
violence to life and person, in particular
murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel
treatment and torture and taking of
hostages. Altogether 69 people were
allegedly killed and 59 injured by the
armed opposition groups in 2004. 6
Women continued to be victims of
violence, including rape, both by the
security forces and the armed opposition
groups.
The indigenous peoples who
constitute 30.95% of the total population
belong to the lowest ladder in all spheres
of the society. The effective functioning of
the Tripura Tribal Autonomous District
Council (TTAADC) was hamstrung by
political rivalries between the Indigenous
Nationalist Party of Tripura and its offshoot
organization, National Socialist
Party of Tripura (NSPT) backed by the
ruling CPM. On 30 December 2004,
governor D N Sahaya dissolved the
TTAADC before its scheduled expiry on
19 May 2005 to bring an end to the
factional feud in the ruling NSPT. 7
Tripura has a large number of people
displaced because of increasing land