The Hindu : National : NLFT rebels gun down 16 jawans in Tripura

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004

National

National

NLFT rebels gun down 16 jawans in Tripura

AGARTALA, DEC. 28. In one of the biggest militant strikes in recent years in Tripura, guerillas of the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) shot dead 16 Territorial Army jawans and a civilian and shot at two others at Dangabari in South Tripura today.

The extremists took away a light machine gun, 15 AK rifles and a huge cache of ammunition from the slain jawans.

Top police and senior paramilitary officials along with a huge contingent of additional security forces have rushed to the spot and a massive combing operation has been launched.

Police said that the jawans were escorting Border Road Organisations labourers in two vehicles when heavily armed NLFT rebels attacked them with automatic rifles from a hilltop.

The incident took place at about 8 a.m. today. The vehicles in which the jawans were travelling were also badly damaged in a powerful grenade explosion triggered by the rebels. A tribal passing by during the attack was also shot dead.The BRO is constructing an alternative highway to connect South Tripura and Dhalai district through the Amarpur sub-division. The workers were working in the insurgency- prone area under security cover.

Today's strike is one of the biggest attacks on the security forces in this North-Eastern State. The last major attack was on the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) jawans at Hirapur in west Tripura on August 20 in which 21 jawans were gunned down.With today's incident, over 46 security personnel, mostly paramilitary jawans, were killed by the tribal guerillas this year, while 36 security men were killed last year.

— UNI

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