Macabre hue to ransom deaths

AGARTALA, March 11: Killing for ransom has assumed macabre proportions in Tripura. The skeleton of a 16-year-old boy, abducted last year, was exhumed from Koaiphang area in South Tripura yesterday. The recovery sparked tension in the area. Police sources said Mohini Lal Kar, a non-tribal Class X student of Koaiphang school, was abducted on December 6 last year by a group of NLFT militants. His father Niranjan Kar, a teacher, ran from pillar to post to trace his son, but failed to do so. Two NLFT militants Dhani Mohan Tripura and Arendra Tripura, who were arrested by Baikhora police on March 5, confessed to abducting and killing the student. He was later buried in the jungle. Jawans of the second battalion of the Tripura State Rifles reached Toofanbari .area, southeast of Koaiphang and exhumed the body. The victim's father identified him from the pieces of torn clothings. The state government has so far recovered 27 skeletons this year on the basis of confessions by militants. On March 7, the remains of Haradhan Roy, a former teacher of Kamarbag Junior Basic School under Udaipur subdivision in South Tripura, was recovered by police from Lovestory Bazar. Pushpa Jamatya, an arrested NLFT militant, confessed to killing Roy. The slain teacher was abducted from near his school on May 4, 1999 and killed despite the payment of Rs 1.40 lakh as ransom by his family. Earlier on March 3, the Udaipur police recovered three skeletons, including that of a Muslim woman, from Sungrungbari area. The woman, part of a large group of daily wage earners, had gone to the forest to collect firewood. The militants abducted and killed the labourers for their inability to pay ransom. On March 19 last year, 10 ONGC labourers were massacred by the NLFT from Arjunthakurpara area under Takarjala police station area. The labourers had been hired by an ONGC contractor to work on a corporation project. The contractor reportedly refused to pay the NLFT area commander in Takarjala police station, whose henchmen beat them to death with wooden clubs. Their skeletons were exhumed by the police in February this year. Sources said milkman Naren Ghosh was buried alive within three days of his abduction from Ujanpathiala under Bagma police outpost in South Tripura on December 24, 1999. He had earlier been abducted in 1997 and set free after his family paid a ransom of Rs 50,000. But Ghosh was unlucky the second time when the NLFT buried him alive after tying up his hands and feet and later collected Rs 20,000 as ransom. His body was recovered by the police in January this year following confessions by an arrested NLFT rebel Falguni Debbarma in Bishalgarh police station. Sources said many more bodies were likely to be recovered in the coming days as hardcore militants and their collaborators were being arrested and interrogated. Decrying the brutalities perpetrated by the militants in the name of insurgency, sources said the militants had no "concrete political goals, ethics and morality. They were only interested in collecting money."