SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 13, No. 48, June 1, 2015

INDIA

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Tripura: Final Consolidation
Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The Tripura Government on May 27, 2015, announced its recommendation to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) to issue a notification for the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958, and the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA), 1967, from the State. The decision followed a go ahead from security agencies in the State.

AFSPA was enforced in Tripura over 18 years ago, on February 16, 1997, to curb ethnic terrorism. It was last extended for six months on November 29, 2014. At present, out of the total 74 Police Station areas in the State, AFSPA was in force in 30 Police Station areas – it was fully operational in 26 Police Station areas and partially in the remaining four. AFSPA was operational in all the then 40 Police Station jurisdictions of the State when it was first imposed in February 1997, but its area of purview was gradually decreased.

Referring to the development, Chief Minister (CM) Manik Sarkar observed, on May 27, 2015, "There is a qualitative change in the law and order situation and the development of the State is in take off stage. Peace loving people don't want violence, rather insisted the Government for development at par with rest of the country (sic). So we also reviewed it and found AFSPA need not to be extended anymore ".

Earlier, on May 18, 2015, while making an appeal to shun violence, Chief Minister Sarkar had noted,

… I appeal to all those who are still following the dangerous path of insurgency, that it is examined and proved, this is an incorrect path.  Shun arms and come back to normal life and take initiative to start a new life. Try to be established in the society and be a part of the democracy…From our side, we assure you of all positive help… They (militants) tried to spoil the confidence amongst us (tribal and non-tribal).  They were cornered by the peace-loving tribal and non-tribal people of Tripura but we must not suffer from complacency since a small section of them are still active. They often try to disturb the internal peace and harmony of the State.

The insurgency raging in Tripura when imposed was in the State. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, a total of 965 persons, including 731 civilians, 133 SF personnel and 101 militants, were killed between 1992 and 1996 in terrorism-related incidents. Fatalities peaked in 2000, when 514 persons were killed in a single year, including 453 civilians, 16 SF personnel and 45 militants. The State registered a subsequent decline in such fatalities and 2013 was the first year when it did not record a single fatality. However, four fatalities (two civilians and two Security Force personnel) were recorded in 2014. There have been no insurgency-linked killings in the first five months of the current year.

In another sign of the further consolidation of peace, the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections organized on May 3, 2015, without a single incident of terrorism-related violence reported during the entire election process commencing on March 31^, 2015, with the notification issued by the Office of the Election Commissioner for District Councils. The ruling Left Front won all 28 of the TTAADC seats for which elections were held. The State Government had deployed roughly 13,000 SF personnel on the day of polling, so that voters could cast their votes without fear, and had intensified the vigil along the Indo-Bangladesh border, with the Border Security Force (BSF) of India and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) cooperating to prevent any untoward incident.

Significantly, the elections were held amidst demands for a separate tribal State, Twipra Land, to be carved out of the present State. The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), an exclusively tribal party, and the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), led by the disbanded Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) militant leader Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl, are the main political forces behind the demand. On April 11, 2015, during the TTAADC election campaign, however, Chief Minister Sarkar observed, “The demand for the separate State, Twipra Land, is a dangerous move and is totally unethical… the demand was irrelevant… The slogan is a conspiracy to vitiate the unity and integrity between tribals and non-tribals.”

This demand was revived after the formation of a separate Telangana State, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in South India on June 2, 2014.

The TTAADC consists of about 527 village committees at the grass roots. The Council was first constituted on January 15, 1982, and elected members were sworn in on January 18 in that year.

Further, the ‘deputy chief of army staff’ of the Biswamohan Debbarma faction of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT-BM), Atharababu Halam aka Semifa aka Babu, and two armed cadre, ‘sergeant major’ Uttam Kumar Jamatia aka Wathui and ‘corporal’ Krishna Mohan Debbarma aka Kiting, surrendered on May 9, 2015, before State Director General of Police (DGP) K. Nagraj. The NLFT-BM is the still violent faction of one of the two groups proscribed by the UMHA. Earlier, on April 5, 2015, another NLFT-BM militant, identified as Prabathari Jamatia, surrendered to the BSF at Chaplingcherra Border outpost in Nutan Bazar in South Tripura District, after escaping from a camp in Bangladesh. Four militants have surrendered in the first five months of the current year, in addition to 31 who had surrendered across the State through 2014.

NLFT-BM, the only surviving splinter group of the NLFT, has a current, estimated cadre strength of 120 to 130.

Meanwhile, for the first time, tripartite peace-talks between NLFT-BM, the State and Union Governments, were held in Shillong in Meghalaya State, on April 4, 2015. The venue of the talks was decided to meet NLFT-BM’s demand that the talks should be held anywhere in the Northeastern region, outside Tripura. Intelligence officials described the meeting as ‘not fruitful’ due to the failure of the top NLFT-BM leadership to participate. Significantly, Biswamohan Debbarma, towards the end of 2014, had addressed a letter to UMHA, expressing the outfit's desire to surrender en masse to the Centre, and negotiate terms and conditions of the surrender through peace talks. There have been no further developments after the April 4 meeting.

The other outfit proscribed by UMHA, the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), with only 3-4 cadres left, is now largely inactive. The last violent incident attributed to the group dates way back to April 2, 2009, when a blast took place targeting a BSF patrol party in the Amar area in the North Tripura District along the Tripura-Bangladesh border. There was no report of any fatality in the blast.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, impressed by the State’s successful anti-insurgency campaign, on December 1, 2014, requested Chief Minister Sarkar to send him a detailed note on how his Government had tackled the insurgency. Modi also asked the Chief Minister to provide success stories of the State’s development, which could be replicated in other parts of the country. In reply, Sarkar stated, “we highlighted our achievement in tackling insurgency before him. We had given free hand to the security personnel to deal with the insurgency firmly. Side by side, the security personnel were asked not to harm innocent people in the name of onslaught against the insurgents.”

While the turnaround in Tripura predated improved relations with Bangladesh, it was consolidated as a result of active Bangladeshi cooperation since the Awami League Government headed by Sheikh Hasina Wajed came to power in 2009. In the past, militants had used their bases across the Indo-Bangladesh border to launch violent attacks in the State. Tripura DGP K. Nagraj, acknowledging the Bangladeshi role, observed, on January 5, 2015, that the State succeeded in neutralizing several militant outfits due to cooperation from Bangladesh, and that Bangladeshi security forces had destroyed several camps of the banned NLFT and seized huge caches of arms and ammunition.

However, the persistence of an estimated 32 militant camps, including 21 belonging to NLFT, in Bangladesh still poses some risk. That NLFT-BM continues to operate out of Bangladeshi territory is evident from the fact that NLFT-BM’s ‘sergeant’ Mangal Debbarma killed his comrade Shanti Lal Tripura at Khagrapur village in Khagrachari District in South Eastern Bangladesh, on May 16, 2015. The slain militant played the role of a mediator in the surrender of Atharababu Halam.

Significantly, during an Inspector General (IG) Level meeting on April 25, 2015, BGB requested BSF for the use of Indian roads to establish new Border Outposts (BOP) in difficult terrain across the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, near the Myanmar border, to which BSF assured full co-operation. The establishment of such BOPs in CHT is expected to help India in containing militancy in Tripura as well, since most of the surviving camps of Northeast Indian Insurgents group, including NLFT-BM, are located in this region. Further, 782.46-kilometres of the 848-kilometer Tripura-Bangladesh Border have been fenced. It is now imperative that the process of fencing the remaining 65.54-kilometres be expedited.

The dismantling of militant infrastructure and complete border fencing will choke off militant supply lines. However, narrow ethnic politics remains to be combated politically, to ensure that the hard-earned peace in Tripura remains intact.

INDIA

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J&K: Sopore: Ascendant Terror
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On May 26, a person identified as Ghulam Hassan Dar was killed by unidentified gunmen in Sopore Town of Baramulla District. Dar was the father of a sarpanch [head of panchayat, village level self-government institution] who had an Aircel mobile transmission tower installed inside his residential compound.

On May 25, terrorists shot dead an employee of a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) franchisee, identified as Mohammad Rafiq Dar, and injured two others at Shah Fasil Market in Sopore town.

On May 23, two grenades were hurled at a residence in Sopore where a mobile transmission tower was installed, but they failed to explode.

The recent attacks on people associated with telecommunication have come after the terrorists’ hitech communication equipment installed atop a tower of an unidentified cellular company was seized by Police on May 23, 2015, in Sopore. “The equipment was used by militants for smooth communication process without detection by security agencies,” Police sources disclosed, adding that the militants suspected that their communication equipment had been handed over to the Police by the people associated with telecom companies in Sopore town.

Earlier, on May 1, 2015, two terrorists had barged into an Airtel show room at General Bus Stand in Sopore and had ‘questioned’ the staff there about their missing communication equipments. The same group of terrorists then went to a Vodafone office at the Water Tank area and subsequently to the Aircel office at Main Chowk with the same query. They threatened the employees at all the three places. Sources indicated that the terrorists might have installed some communication device which would have boosted their internet facilities, as they no longer use cell phones for communication, after reports emerged that terrorists were being traced through cellular channels. An intelligence officer noted, "Militants hardly use radios or cell phones these days. Communication is happening on Voice over Internet Protocol. That needs faster speed and they may have installed these devices to raise the internet speed".

According to the Police, there are 37 mobile towers under their Sopore jurisdiction. Aircel has 12 towers, followed by Airtel (11), Reliance (5), Vodafone (4), Tata Indicom and Idea (2 each) and one tower of the Government-owned BSNL.

Meanwhile, posters of a hitherto unknown terrorist outfit, Lashkar-e-Islam, have been appearing in Sopore town since May 15, 2015, threatening people associated with telecom companies to stop working or be ready to face consequences. Sopore Superintendent of Police (SP) Abdul Qayoom stated, "Although the Police are investigating Lashkar-e-Islam and its motive, what we can say is it could be a shadow group of Lashkar-e-Taiba or even Hizb-ul-Mujahideen," adding, "Cell phones have become a major source of information about the whereabouts of the militants, and this seems to be the reason why the outfit is trying to forcibly close down the operation of mobile phones in Sopore in particular and other parts of north Kashmir as well."

General Officer Commanding 15 Chinar Corps, Lieutenant General Subrata Saha, observed that the singling out of the telecom sector in Sopore brings a new focus to the fight against terror in the Valley: "This group (Lashkar-e-Islam) has been criticized by all. We're analyzing it as a new threat and I am sure we will expose this unheard of group."

All major cellular companies operating in Kashmir have shut shop in Sopore. Surprisingly, none of the cellular companies had registered any complaint against the unidentified gunmen, whom they described as 'militants'. Nevertheless, Police took cognisance of the matter and started investigations. An FIR has been registered for the attacks  but no arrests have been made so far.

Terrorists have succeeded in disrupting the entire mobile communication system not only in Sopore, but across the entire Baramulla District. Indeed, on May 27, 2015, one person, identified as Imtiyaz Ahmad, a resident of Aram Mohalla of the Pattan area of Baramulla District, was fired upon and injured by unknown assailants near his home. Ahmad has two mobile phone transmission towers installed at his house.

It is far from coincidental that the epicenter of the new threat is Sopore. Sopore has been a terror stronghold for decades. The town has a vast hinterland that provides hideouts to the terrorists after they strike terror and the easiest points of infiltration into the Kashmir Valley from across the Line of Control (LoC) are to be found in the Tithwal/Tangdhar sector, which lies in the backyard of Sopore town.

Ever since armed conflict began in the Valley, separatist sentiments have run deep in Sopore. When the insurgency broke out in late 1988, Sopore became a hotbed of separatist activity; its geographical location, centered in the midst of north Kashmir, which shares a border with Pakistan, contributed directly to its prominence in the ‘troubles’. According to a report published in April 2013, the Police believe that the conspiracy for most of the attacks across J&K, is hatched in Sopore, because the terrorists receive enormous logistic support locally. Sopore is also the home town of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the separatist All Party Hurriyat Conference-Geelani (APHC-G).

The terrorist writ ran over a wide area centered around Sopore for a long time. Terrorism survived and even thrived here, despite a continuous campaign by SFs to root it out. Indeed, according to partial data collated by Institute for Conflict Management, since, 2001 a total of 208 fatalities, including 57 civilians, 52 SF personnel and 99 terrorists, have been recorded in the Sopore area of Baramulla District. During the same period, fatalities in the entire Baramulla District stood at 724 – including 130 civilians, 144 SF personnel and 450 terrorists.

Sopore had also emerged as one of the epicenters of the orchestrated rage of the stone pelting campaigns of 2010, along with Baramulla and Srinagar. Though the escalation started in Srinagar in the last week of June 2010, it progressively swelled, with a large number of demonstrations erupting in Sopore.

Indeed, much before the street protests began in June 2010, then J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had noted, on March 2, 2010, "Militants are grouping in the Sopore area and Kulgam District. These areas are a challenge for us on the militancy front. We are taking extra measures to deal with the militants there."

The Pakistan-backed Islamist extremist-terrorist networks in Sopore have demonstrated their surviving capacities by forcing the disruption of the telecommunication network in Baramulla through acts of targeted violence. Sopore remains a persistent pool of subversion and unrest in a Kashmir that is increasingly rejecting violence. A focused strategy to neutralize the remaining extremist-terrorist strongholds in J&K is now necessary if the trends towards a growing peace are to be permanently consolidated.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

Assam

Jammu and Kashmir

Manipur

Meghalaya

Left-wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Telangana

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

KP

Punjab

Sindh

PAKISTAN (Total)