annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights
annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights
annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights
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INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Tripura<br />
alienation, insurgency and fencing of<br />
Indo-Bangladesh border. There were about<br />
70,000 internally displaced persons but the<br />
government has little plans of action to<br />
rehabilitate them.<br />
II. Atrocities by secutiry <strong>for</strong>ces<br />
i. Arbitrary, summary and extrajudicial<br />
executions<br />
The security <strong>for</strong>ces have been<br />
responsible <strong>for</strong> widespread human rights<br />
violations in the name of combating<br />
insurgency. The strength of security <strong>for</strong>ces<br />
in the state was <strong>report</strong>ed to be 9,919<br />
Tripura police personnel, 2,520 Home<br />
Guards, 60 companies of Tripura State<br />
Rifles (TSR), 80 companies of Border<br />
Security Force (eight deployed in counter<br />
insurgency operations), 60 companies of<br />
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and<br />
3 battalions of the Assam Rifles. 8<br />
Though there have been <strong>report</strong>s of<br />
widespread extrajudicial executions,<br />
NHRC recorded only two custodial death<br />
cases in Tripura in 2000-2001, 1 custodial<br />
death in 2001-2002 and 2 cases in 2002-<br />
2003. 9<br />
Opposition leader Ratan Lal Nath of<br />
the Congress alleged be<strong>for</strong>e a visiting<br />
delegation of the National <strong>Human</strong> <strong>Rights</strong><br />
Commission in June 2004 that<br />
paramilitary <strong>for</strong>ces had killed 48 innocent<br />
tribals during the first six months of<br />
2004. 10 Earlier, on 28 March 2004, Deputy<br />
Inspector-General of Police (range) Akhil<br />
Kumar Shukla <strong>report</strong>edly issued a circular<br />
directing officer-in-charges of police<br />
stations in Tripura to refrain from<br />
disseminating any in<strong>for</strong>mation to the<br />
media or to any other quarter on such<br />
killings. 11<br />
On 14 March 2004, Subodh<br />
Debbarma, a tribal youth aged 27, was<br />
killed by the 6th battalion of the Assam<br />
Rifles posted at Gabordi area under<br />
Srinagar police station after he was called<br />
out of his house to act as their guide. An<br />
investigation conducted by Indigenous<br />
Nationalist Party of Tripura Vice-<br />
President, Nagendra Jamatiya and the<br />
local MLA Rajeshwar Debbarma found<br />
that the Assam Rifles personnel shot dead<br />
Subodh Debbarma at Shamukcherra<br />
village, two kms away from Padmamohan<br />
para. He was taken as a guide. On 15<br />
March 2004, the Assam Rifles authority<br />
claimed that Subodh Debbarma was a<br />
cadre of the NLFT (Nayanbasi) group and<br />
was killed in an encounter. However, the<br />
residents of Padmamohan para and<br />
Shamukcherra village <strong>report</strong>edly claimed<br />
that there was no encounter on the night of<br />
14 March 2004. 12<br />
On 2 June 2004, Chief Minister Manik<br />
Sarkar ordered a magisterial inquiry into<br />
the killing of Subodh Debbarma. 13<br />
On 16 March 2004, Kuncharai Reang<br />
and Maheshwar Reang were allegedly<br />
extrajudicially executed at Chichingcherra<br />
under Manu police station in Dhalai<br />
district by the State police and Tripura<br />
State Rifles personnel posted at Manu<br />
police station. While Kuncharai was a<br />
class IX student of Rabindranagar High<br />
School in Kanchanpur subdivision,<br />
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