| Kamalnagar massacre | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Location | Kamalnagar, West Tripura, Tripura, India |
| Coordinates | 23°56′N91°37′E / 23.93°N 91.61°E |
| Date | 14 August 2003 (UTC+5:30) |
| Target | Bengali Hindus |
Attack type | Massacre |
| Weapons | AK 37 |
| Deaths | 14 |
| Perpetrators | ATTF insurgents |
Kamalnagar massacre refers to the murder of 14 unarmed Bengali Hindu villagers in Kamalnagar on 14 August 2003 by the All Tripura Tiger Force insurgents.
ATTF had been carrying on attacks on Bengali Hindu settlements in a bid to oust all post-1949 settlers from the state. They along with the NLFT had massacred 30 Bengali Hindus in May 2003.
The village of Kamalnagar is situated on a sharp bend on the Agartala Khowai Road, [1] under Kalyanpur police station in West Tripura District. It was a sparsely populated village abundant with mango and jackfruit trees and inhabited by impoverished Bengali Hindu farmers. [1] The dwellings consisted of mud huts and lacked electricity connection. [2] Some of the residents had moved to Kamalnagar from Kalyanpur in 2000, due to fear of attacks by the militants.
In 2003, on the eve of independence day at around 9:45 pm, the All Tripura Tiger Force insurgents attacked Kamalnagar. The attackers first cordoned off the entire village and set fire to the huts. As the people rushed out of their huts, the militants fired indiscriminately on those came in front of them. Others were chased down and shot at. Some of the militants entered the huts and fired at their victims hiding below the bed. A few villagers were axed to death. During the killing spree the attackers continuously abused the victims.
The attacks lasted around half an hour. [3] According to unconfirmed reports Tripuri villagers from neighbouring areas accompanied the militants. [2] Fourteen Bengali Hindu villagers including seven members of one family were killed in the massacre. Many were injured in the attack. T.B. Roy, the Superintendent of Police arrived on the spot soon after the massacre on his way to Agartala from Khowai.
Tensions began to mount in the Kamalnagar and neighbouring villages of Kalyanpur police station in the aftermath of the massacre. More than 300 Bengali Hindu families abandoned their houses in Kamalpur and took shelter at the Kamalpur High School. The Tripuris residing in the area, including government employees, students and patients all fled the area in fear of backlash. The locals blocked the road, demanding a permanent Tripura State Rifles outpost. Five ministers who went to visit Kamalnagar were heckled by the public. [4]
On the next day, one of the survivors filed a written complaint at the Kalyanpur police station. On 5 January 2009, two ATTF commanders identified as Michael and Royal Debbarma who were responsible for the massacre surrendered before the Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Jirania in the West Tripura District. [5] The police investigated the incident and framed charge sheet against seventeen accused. The trial began in 2009 at the Additional District and Sessions Court in Khowai in which the testimonies of 38 witnesses were recorded. At the end of the trial three persons Kartik Debbarma, Brajendra Debbarma and Ashok Debbarma were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. The rest fourteen were acquitted due to lack of evidence.[ citation needed ]
Tripura is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers 10,491 km2 (4,051 sq mi); and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 3.67 million. It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the east and by Bangladesh to the north, south and west. Tripura is divided into 8 districts and 23 sub-divisions, where Agartala is the capital and the largest city in the state. Tripura has 19 different tribal communities with a majority Bengali population. Bengali, English and Kokborok are the state's official languages.
Agartala is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Tripura, situated on the banks of Haora River, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of the border with Bangladesh and about 2,499 km (1,552 mi) from the national capital, New Delhi. According to 2022 census, Agartala is the third largest city after Imphal metropolitan in Northeast India. It is India's third international internet gateway and being developed under the Smart Cities Mission.
The National Liberation Front of Tripura is a banned Tripuri nationalist terrorist organisation based in Tripura, India. It has an estimated 550 to 850 members.
Kokborok (or Tripuri) is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Indian state of Tripura and neighbouring areas of Bangladesh.
Dasarth Debbarma was an Indian Communist politician in the Indian state of Tripura. He was chief minister of Tripura from 1993 to 1998. He was a leader of the Ganamukti Parishad and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He was also the vice-president of All India Kisan Sabha and first and yet only Tiprasa chief minister of Tripura.
Dhalai is an administrative district in the state of Tripura in India. The district headquarter is in Ambassa. As of 2011 it was the least populous district of Tripura, although it is the largest district in the state.
The Tripura Baptist Christian Union (TBCU) is a Baptist Christian denomination in Tripura, India. It has its head office in Agartala, the state capital. The TBCU is affiliated to the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation (APBF) and the Baptist World Alliance (BWA). It is also a member church in the North East India Christian Council (NEICC), a regional church body of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI).
The Tripuri, are a Tibeto-Burman-speaking ethnic group of Northeast Indian state of Tripura. They are the descendants of the inhabitants of the Twipra/Tripura Kingdom in North-East India and Bangladesh. The Tripuri people through the Manikya dynasty ruled the Kingdom of Tripura for many years until the kingdom joined the Indian Union on 15 October 1949.
In the 2008 Agartala bombings at least 4 people were killed and a 100 injured on 1 October 2008 in a series of 5 blasts set off in Agartala, capital of the Indian state of Tripura, within 45 minutes, while two unexploded bombs were defused.
The All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) was a Tripuri nationalist militant group active in India's Tripura State. It was founded on 11 July 1990, by a group of former Tripura National Volunteer members under the leadership of Ranjit Debbarma. The ATTF is considered a terrorist organisation by India. According to the South Asian Terrorism Portal, approximately 90% of the ATTF's administration are Hindu and the rest are Christians. The group was said to have been formed as the armed wing of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) but split into its own organization. The group was headquartered in Tarabon in Bangladesh.
Tripuri Nationalism is an ideology that supports self-determination by the Tripuri people. The conflict is in essence ethnic and the Tripuri community, indigenous to the region formed the clear majority of population in the princely state of Tippera, which joined the Republic of India in 1949 as the state of Tripura.
The Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) is a regional political party in Tripura, India. It is a member of the National Democratic Alliance and North-East Democratic Alliance. The party was merged into the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) in 2001, However diverged out in 2009. The party is allied with BJP in the 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election and won 8 seats out of 9 contested seats. The party got 7.5% of the total votes polled. The BJP got 36 seats and with a total of 44 seats the BJP-IPFT coalition have two-thirds majority at the Legislative Assembly.
Mandai massacre refers to the general massacre of the Bengalis of Mandwi village near Agartala in the Indian state of Tripura on 8 June 1980, by tribal insurgents. According to official figures 255 Bengalis were massacred in Mandai, while foreign presses, independent sources and eyewitnesses put the figure anywhere between 350 and 400. Many of the victims had their heads crushed and their limbs severed. The children were spiked through. Pregnant women had their stomachs slit open. The Amrita Bazar Patrika described the Mandwi massacre as My Lai massacre put into shade. According to Major R. Rajamani, the commander of the Indian army contingent that arrived on 9 June, the My Lai massacre was not even half as gruesome as in Mandwi.
The Bagber massacre was a massacre of unarmed Bengali Hindu on 20 May 2000 by NLFT militants. 25 ethnic Bengali Hindus were killed as they were fleeing the Bagber refugee camp.
Khowai district is a district of Tripura state of India. This district was created in January, 2012 when four new districts were created in Tripura, taking the number of districts in the state from four to eight. The district headquarters are located in the town Khowai. The district was carved out of West Tripura district along with new Sipahijala district. The district is divided into two subdivisions, namely Khowai and Teliamura.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Tripura:
Atul Debbarma is an Indian doctor-turned-politician and author. He was a practicing doctor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi until December 2017. He became involved with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its different wings such as Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Vivekananda International Foundation in 2007. He won the Tripura Assembly Elections 2018 as the BJP candidate from Krishnapur constituency.
The insurgency in Tripura was an armed conflict which took place in the state of Tripura between India and several separatist rebel organisations. It was a part of the wider insurgency in Northeast India and was fueled by Tripuris.
United Bengali Liberation Front was a militant separatist organisation in Tripura, India. It sought to protect Bengalis from Bangladesh against Tripuri militants and other tribal groups and first appeared in the year 1995, alongside the NLFT and ATTF. There was no official data about its commanders and cadres. UBLF was involved in bomb blasts, murders and Hostage Crises. Its conflict was against Indigenous Tribals and other Tribals of Neighbouring stares. The UBLF came into existence only after the ATTF was formed with the aim of decimating Bengali Hindus living in Tripura. The ATTF carried out multiple attacks against the Bengali Hindus who arrived to India after ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh. The ATTF have been credited with at least 20 attacks on Bengali speaking people. The formation of UBLF was a direct retaliation against these killings of Bengali Hindus.The UBLF was banned by the GoI later.
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