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Tripura ethnic violence claims 10 lives, curfew in Khowai

Ethnic violence rocked Tripura, claiming 10 lives since Friday night in West Tripura district's Khowai sub-division and forcing the authorities to impose an indefinite curfew and issue shoot-at-sight orders.

The Assam Rifles and central paramilitary forces staged a flag march following ethnic and extremist violence that killed 10 persons and injured 16 others since Friday night in Khowai.

Police and official sources told UNI in Agartala that curfew was imposed at 1600 IST and the Assam Rifles and other paramilitary forces staged a flag march in the Kalyanpur, Khowai and Teliamura police station areas, where the situation had become explosive.

District Magistrate Manoj Kumar and other senior police and civil officials are supervising the security measures to prevent fresh violence.

At least six tribals were killed and 11 seriously injured when cadres of the outlawed United Bengali Liberation Front of Tripura hurled powerful bombs at a jeep coming from Uttar Maharani under Teliamura police station this morning. The incident occurred at Khagendra Colony, 60km from the state capital Agartala.

Three of the victims were close relatives of Tripura Upajati Juba Samity general secretary and former minister Rabindra Debbarma. The injured persons were admitted to hospital.

Immediately after the UBLFT attack, tribal guerillas shot dead three people, including a schoolteacher, at different places under the Kalyanpur and Teliamura police stations. All these incidents occurred between 0900 IST and 1100 IST today.

Last night, a non-tribal mob killed a tribal woman and seriously injured five others at Sodhai Bari under Kalyanpur police station. The attack was in retaliation for Thursday's extremist attack at Masebhander in which a non-tribal woman was killed.

With this, the number of those killed by extremists in the past 11 days in Tripura has gone up to 37. As many as 92 people have been killed by the tribal guerillas and Bengali rebels since April 1.

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