Tripura family massacred

Press, 27 December 1986, Page 7

Tripura family massacred

NZPA-AFP New Delhi

Secessionist guerrillas killed a family of eight on Christmas night, set their home ablaze and tossed the bodies into the fire, said the Chief Minister of India’s north-eastern Tripura state yesterday. The Press Trust of India quoted the Minister, Nripen Chakraborty, as saying that guerrillas from the Tribal National Volunteers (T.N.V.) attacked the family living in Kachichayi-Debbari village, in north Tripura.

The massacre followed the Christmas Eve murder of four people in south Tripura by T.N.V. gunmen.

The latest killings took the death toll this year from the T.N.V. campaign to beyond 100, the highest figure in the eight-year insurgency. Mr Chakraborty had

asked for army reinforcements to be sent to Tripura, New Delhi newspapers reported yesterday.

Seven battalions of paramilitary police and one Army battalion — more than 11,000 men — are already stationed in Tripura to tackle the insurgency. The T.N.V. aims to create local tensions to further the campaign for a separate tribal-led nation, according to Mr Chakraborty. Tribals, who live mainly in backward areas, are descended from the original inhabitants of the subcontinent and are outside the rigid caste system. Many are Christian. Tripura, which borders Bangladesh, had a majority of Tribals until the Pakistan war in 1971 led to a huge influx of nonTribals.