April 28, 2002	Sunday	Safar 14, 1423

AGARTALA, April 27: Federal troops were on high alert in Tripura on Saturday after tribal separatists killed at least 10 members of the ruling party over the past week, officials said.

“Troops are on a state of high alert with additional paramilitary soldiers deployed in vulnerable areas to prevent attacks on civilians and other political party workers,” Tripura police chief B.L. Vohra told AFP.

Heavily armed militants of the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), which is fighting for an independent tribal homeland, shot dead the members of the state’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) in three separate incidents in recent days, police said.

The victims included at least two women CPM leaders.

“The militants are on the run after we deployed Tripura State Rifles posts in about nine areas and out of sheer desperation the NLFT have started attacking CPM members,” the police chief said.

The CPM, however, blamed its main political rival in the state, the Congress party.

“More than 150 CPM workers and leaders were killed by the NLFT during the past one year, with the militants in collaboration with the opposition Congress,” CPM chief spokesman Gautam Das said.

“The attack on the CPM is nothing but an act of desperation withrly next year.”

The Congress party’s Tripura wing denied any involvement in the killings and in turn accused the CPM of using another tribal rebel group, the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), to eliminate its members.

India says the NLFT and tngladesh to carry out hit-and-run guerrilla strikes in Tripura. Bangladesh denies the charge.

More than 10,000 people have been killed by insurgency in Tripura during the past two decades.—AFP