Agartala: Thirty one years after the formal surrender of the erstwhile Tripura National Volunteer (TNV) militants on August 10, 1988, another mass surrender of outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura, led by Sabir Kumar Debbarma (NLFT-SD), is scheduled to take place at Ambassa of Dhalai district, on Tuesday.
The TNV erased its signboard after the surrender ceremony with the direct involvement of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawal, the outfits chief, afterwards stepped into direct politics.
He became an MLA in the state legislative assembly and is now heading anti-left and anti-BJP formation Indigenous Nationalist Front of Tripura (INPT).
Just like TNV, the banned militant outfit NLFT has signed a tripartite Memorandum of Settlement, on Saturday, in Delhi involving Government of India and Government of Tripura.
As per the conditions of the memorandum of settlement, altogether 88 NLFT militants, most of them with arms, will formally join the mainstream — Significantly, this agreement does not include any political concession by the Centre or Tripura Government, but the returnees will get the benefit of full rehabilitation package announced by the Union home ministry.
In the case of TNV surrender, altogether 437 returnees were sheltered in a camp for a few months before being properly rehabilitated with jobs, homestead and land, et al.
According to sources, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma and top officials of the administration would take part in the surrender ceremony. The arrangement of the function has been initiated on Sunday, by the district administration and all the expected returnees have been kept under security cover.
The third left front government led by Dasharath Deb had signed a bipartite agreement with All Tripura Tribal Force (ATTF) militants on August 23, 1993 and a large number of rebels had laid down arms on September 6 that year. No political concession had been made but the returnees were given liberal rehabilitation benefits. However, as per the agreement the number of reserved seats for non-tribals in the ADC had been reduced from 7 to 3.
During the time of TNV’s surrender, the lone political concession had been the increase of tribal reserve seats in the state assembly from 17 to 20 by an act of parliament, while Bijoy Hrangkhawal had been given the chairmanship of Tribal Rehabilitation and Plantation Corporation (TRPC). The NLFT was formed on March 12, 1989, with Dhananjoy Reang (former Vice-President of Tripura National Volunteers) as its Chairman.
Reang after being expelled from the NLFT in 1993 formed a separate outfit, the Tripura Resurrection Army (TRA) but surrendered in the year 1997. (UNI)
