From Our Correspondent

Agartala: Dy Election Commissioner Alok Sukla would be arriving here on Wednesday to review the overall election preparations. During his two-day visit, the Dy EC would hold separate meetings with DROs, SPs and ROs, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashutosh Jindal here on Tuesday.

Shukla will visit a few districts and hold meetings with district magistrates, police superintendents and sub-divisional magistrates of all the districts to review the preparations for the elections.

Besides holding meetings with officials, he might meet representatives of political parties to know their grievances in the run up to the election process.

Jindal said he would hold separate meetings with authority concerned for all the eight districts to take note of the overall election preparations.

“We have already asked all DROs, SPs and EROs to remain ready for the meetings with the Dy. EC”, he said. All the ten Expenditure Observers arrived here to keep close eye on the expenditure by different political parties and their aspirants. Police Observers and General Observers are expected to start arriving here on January 28 to monitor the election process.

To ensure peaceful election, the additional companies of Central Para Military Forces (CPMF) have started arriving here.

So far, 44 companies of CPMF have arrived to perform poll related duties.

Though they are meant for performing election related duties, state police has been using additional forces in different purpose, said a top police office.

It may be noted that the Centre would provide 110 companies of additional troops to conduct the election free, fair and peaceful.

Following complaints of opposition Congress, the state election machineries have collected video footage of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s speech and sent it to the Election Commission of taking necessary steps.

Sources said, Congress had lodged fresh complaint on three issues delivered by Chief Minister on a Left Front rally at Vivekananda Stadium here. The three issues include putting blame on Congress for Babri Masjid demolition and Congress indirectly supports extremism in Tripura. Earlier also, Chief Minister faced EC inquiry for giving an interview to a private cable TV channel sitting his office at Civil Secretariat recently.

From Our Correspondent

Guwahati: A policeman was injured and a police station was damaged when militants belonging to the utlawed United Liberation Font of Assam (ULFA), anti-talks faction, launched an attack on Namtola police station in Sonari sub-division of Sivasagar district of Assam bordering Nagaland late Monday night.

Police informed that suspected ULFA militants taking advantage of darkness sprayed bullets at the police station for about half an hour leaving a commando jawan injured besides causing damage to police station’s property including vehicles.

The militants lobbed a powerful grenade at the police station. But it missed the target and fell at a stranded truck causing a huge fire. Three vehicles parked inside the police station campus due to the attack.

Later top ranked police officials were rushed to the spot to launch a combing operation.

Security forces have cordoned off the entire area and have launched a combing operation to nab the ULFA men involved in the attack.

Meanwhile, the banned ULFA in a statement issued on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was in retaliation to killing of an innocent Assamese youth, Lalit Moran, by the Army in coordination with Assam Police in a ‘fake encounter’ at Kakojan in Tinsukia district of Assam on the night of January 21 last.

The ULFA faction warned that more such attacks would be launched on Assam Police personnel if they did not stop coordinating with the Indian Army in killing ‘innocent Assamese youth’.