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

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