Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: Hindustan Times
Date: February 15, 2009
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/redir.aspx?ID=46d46761-bd93-4405-b79a-60fa993c06c9
More than 100 tribal separatists have surrendered
before the authorities in Tripura after fleeing from their bases in adjoining
Bangladesh, officials said in Agartala on Sunday.
"The Bangladesh-trained militants, numbering
118 and led by their leader Pabanjoy Reang, surrendered before senior police
and paramilitary officers late Saturday night," police spokesman Nepal
Das said.
The militants belong to the Borok National
Council of Tripura (BNCT), a sister organisation of the banned National Liberation
Front of Tripura (NLFT).
They also deposited a large cache of arms
and ammunition, including AK series rifles, three mortars and foreign made
revolvers.
Militants belonging to various rebel groups
in the northeast have set up about 100 camps and hideouts in different parts
of Bangladesh, specially Sylhet district and Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)
in the mainly hilly region of Bangladesh bordering India's Tripura, Mizoram
and Meghalaya states.
"We have managed to escape from our camps
in CHT after Bangladesh launched anti-insurgency operations in different parts
of that country," Reang told reporters.
With this, about 160 tribal guerrillas of
NLFT and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), including some dreaded ultras carrying
rewards of Rs.250,000 each and having Interpol arrest warrants, have fled
from their Bangladeshi camps and surrendered to Indian security forces.
