Agartala: Controversy erupted with the state government’s decision to withdraw all cases against the undertrial extremists in the state at a time when the opposition Congress demanded to refer all the militancy-related cases to National Investigating Agency (NIA).
Addressing media here on Tuesday; Congress state president Sudip Roy Barman accused the ruling CPI-M and Chief Minister Manik Sarkar of patronising banned militant outfits for their narrow political interest.
“Government’s decision to withdraw 1300 cases of heinous crimes against 736 undertrial extremists before the Assembly election, violating the norms and guideline of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is an evident of CPI-M association with the militants,” Mr Roy Barman alleged.
Revealing details of the government decision he pointed out that as per MHA guideline in regard to rehabilitation of militants, the state government could not withdraw any case against any extremist, which was heinous in nature like murder, rape, extortion and abduction. However, the government’s decision for withdrawing the cases against the criminals, who had been either in judicial custody or on bail, was an indication that the ruling party had hatched conspiracy to destroy peace and create ethnic riot, Mr Roy Barman attributed.
He also stated that CPM spokesperson Goutam Das had admitted holding of meeting with surrendered militants in the state early this month and the previous all records of statement of surrendered extremists found that they had a political linkage with CPI-M in Tripura and Bangladesh Nationalist Party. ‘If any militancy-related incident occurs in the state from now on, the state government and the CPI-M will be responsible because they are not interested to refer such cases to NIA’.
Leader of the opposition Ratan Lal Nath stated that All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) Supremo Ranjit Debbarma, National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) top leader Utpal Reang belong to CPI-M and without taking any name added a senior CPM leader met them in Dhaka several times.
Former Chief Minister Zoramthanga, who was accused by Manik Sarkar in 2008 of sheltering NLFT militants in Mizoram, had held a meeting with the Tripura ministers recently and the extremists who had surrendered made it clear that they were using Mizoram as their corridor for travelling to Myanmar. (UNI)