Agartala, April 17: The one-and-a-half year old child seem to have learnt the realities of life too early. Between Saturday night and Sunday morning his life has witnessed a sea-change. He no longer cries for his mother. Rather he has familiarized himself with the sisters of the Indira Gandhi Memorial hospital here. He laughs along with them. He cries only when the injuries he received on April 15 night, gives him pain.

He is one of those who suffered bullet injury when the ATTF militants attacked his village Khash Kalyanpur in Khowai Subdivision of West Tripura district on Saturday morning. Thirteen people were killed and seven others sustained injury.

Pulin Das, a small trader, rushed along with the police after the militants left the village. He found the child with bullet injury lying in the courtyard of a house. Barring a deadbody outside the house, none was around. He did not care about the identity. He took the child to Kalyanpur hospital and from there to Agartala. The IGM hospital authority also registered him as unknown, aged one-and-a-half year from Khash Kalyanpur.

But the question circulating round the corner of the hospital is how he could learn to laugh without his mother around. Minakshi Roy, a sister of the hospital said the incident might have thought him the lesson about the realities of life in present day Tripura. He atleast has the hope of reuniting with his family, someday.

In Tripura today, new and new kids are getting orphaned everyday. He might have considered himself lucky. The bullet only touched his belly. So there is no threat on his life.

What Ms Roy observed about the child was corroborating to the fact when we visited the Khash Kalyanpur on Sunday morning. Nearly 50 families who's houses were gutted by the militants, have taken shelters in the village school. When we reached there they were preparing breakfast. They were very much agitated for not getting any relief since last night.

As soon as we disclosed our identity, the first reaction of Nayanbashi Nath, an old lady was, "we could not eat anything last night and no relief has reached us so far. When asked about last night's killing, she appeared frustrated. Babu Sabe Amader Kapaler Lekha (it is all our fate) was her reaction.

Udalguri, April 17: A secret letter alleged to have originated from Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangha (RSS), and circulated by an unknown source, has created confusion and fear psychosis among the people here in BAC area. The xeroxed leaflets encoded as a secret circulation of RSS were circulated first in Bodo Sahitya Sabha session at Simborgaon in Kokrajhar district and then in other parts of BAC area. The letter suggested to intensify activities to gather firearms and ammunities against the Muslims and SC, ST and OBC people. It was mentioned as circulated by the district level Brahmin Samaj of Palakkad in Madhya Pradesh. The page numbers in this printed leaflet in English were given in Brahmiscript.

The leaflet carried a certain numbers of objectionable points against the Muslims and SC, ST and OBC communities. The leaflet suggested the local leaders to encourage the SC, ST and OBC and Muslim women to practise prostitution arrange to damage the physical and mental development of the school-going children belonging to SC, ST, OBC and Muslim communities, specially the children of Ambedkarites by feeding them foods and other edible items mixed with poison with the help of teachers, volunteers and food vendors, expedite visitation of riots against these communities and during riots the women of those communities should be gang raped mercilessly etc.

GUWAHATI, April 18: Of late, exploitations on the incoming trucks into the State has assumed a horrible proportion. The highway route from Baxirhat to Khanapara in Guwahati, comprising a number of gates, have proved to be a blessing for those working as wardens in the gates. Each truck has to spend from Rs 1200 to Rs 1500 as tips to them. Besides there are the ubiquitous highway patrolling police, demanding tips from the incoming trucks loaded with foodgrains and vegetables. The most horrendous of them all is the goonda tax payable at several places in the city, thereby compelling the drivers to keep Rs 1,000 aside for the Guwahati zone alone. This then culminates on the soaring prices of food materials in the State.

The payments of such illegal 'taxes' start at the moment these tricks enter the State at Baxirhat which has as many as six 'tax' gates. The gates are placed by the Excise, Marketing, Transport, Police, Sale Tax and the Forest authorities, to enforce their respective departmental administration, being only effective on these unwary incoming trucks.

This reporter travelled all the way from Baxirhat to Guwahati by truck to conduct a study on the horrible exploitations on these trucks. And what he recalls shows how degrading is our present moral values. He saw that the truck drivers have not only to please the men at the Baxirhat gates, but also there are the toll gates at Ratiajoha, in Gouranga Bridge gate, the Saraighat gate and the gates at Beltola and Khanapara. The truck drivers have no guts to refuse the demands or make a bargain in these places. The area from the Nalbari petrol pump to Rangia is again a red zone area for the truck drivers, where no driver generally intends to cross by night. Instead they halt at Simaluguri near Barpeta Road or the roadside dhabas in the region in between Barpeta Road and the Nalbari petrol pump, for the night waiting for the dawn, as the area in question is generally haunted by the criminals highway robbers and their domination is law, in the cover of night.

The truck drivers have to begin with spending Rs 250 to 300 to cross the Baxirhat gates. The trucks carrying raw materials like potatoes, tomatoes and vegetables and other perishables items are the soft targets generally. They are detained upto 12 hours if they deny payment as demanded. The Transport gate popularly known as the MVI gate is the worst of them all. The truck drivers have to oblige them to avoid undue harassments.

The Ratiajoha toll gate in the Dhubri district is notorious for its goonda raj. Each truck has to spend from Rs 50 to Rs 100 so as to get the passing signal. Thereupon comes the Gouranga bridge gate where the police personnel deployed for the security of the gate caste their greedy eyes on every truck realizing Rs 50 from each of them.

Another factor that has increasingly became a menace for the truck drivers are the police. They halt the trucks near the Chapar Police Station, Bahalpur bridge, Bathamari, Police Station, and Patacharkuchi Police Station. The police personnel await trucks near these police station both in the morning and evening and collect money from the trucks.

Jorhat, April 19: When the common people in the State have been having a harrowing time due to the rampant use of red lights by persons who are not entitled to use the same in their cars by the Assam Motor Vehicle Act, 1940 (amended in 1985), Bokajan police unearthed yet another way of misuse of red lights by miscreants in their cars to supply narcotics like ganja. According to reports, Bokajan police arrested three persons along with a huge quantity of ganja which they had been carrying in an Ambassador car (AS-01-A-3279) with a red light fitted on it. A huge quantity of ganja was seized by the police from the "dicky" and inside portion of the car, which bore a plate written "Chief Engineer, PWD, Government of Assam". The three miscreants have been identified as -- Subhas, Narayan Deb Nath and Gopal Roy. They are being grilled. Till the time of filing of this report, the police could not estimate the quantity of the seized ganja and its value in the international market.

When contacted, Karbi Anglong SP said that, acting on a tip-off police stopped the "VIP car" and found the ganja. He further said that it was not known whether the three persons were government employees or not. They are being grilled, he said. It is also not known whether the number plate of the car is a real or a fake one.

In another incident in the district, police recovered a stolen Maruti van and arrested two persons -- Raju Upadhyay and Prasad Roy -- in this connection, the SP said, adding that the duo admitted before the police during interrogation that they had stolen the car from Bihar.

It may be mentioned that an inter-State gang of car lifters continues to supply stolen cars to Dimapur via Karbi Anglong, as the district has a common border with Nagaland.

Agartala, April 19: Kill, abduct and extort, but ask no questions. Subsist on two spartan meals a day and a monthly allowance of Rs 1,000, but never complain. This is what life as a militant in blood-soaked Tripura entails.

Given the physical and psychological demands on them, the majority of youth who get sucked into the vortex of militancy are disillusioned after a couple of years in the jungle, according to arrested National Liberation Front of Tripura area commander Ratanjay Debbarma.

"It is not easy at all. Not many survive the grind," he said.

Debbarma, apprehended in Adibasipara village under North Tripura's Kanchanpur sub-division on April 5, said rising in the NLFT hierarchy was the biggest challenge of all. "One has to sacrifice everything, even religion. Conversion to Christianity is mandatory now," he said.

The arrested militant leader, who hails from Maynama village under Manu police station, said he was "forced" to join the NLFT in February 1997.

"I was reading a book in my house one evening when a group of NLFT militants barged in and ordered me to accompany them. When my mother and other family members protested, the intruders ordered them to keep quiet. They said I had to go with them and play a role in liberating Tripura from foreigners," Debbarma said.

On his initiation into militancy, Debbarma said he underwent an arduous three-month training course in an NLFT hideout in Dhalai district. "I learnt how to handle stenguns, carbines, 303 rifles and AK-47 rifles. During and after training, we survived on two meals a day. Sometimes we had just snails and monkey meat. We could not even smoke as the punishment for doing so was 50 strokes with a cane," he said.

The arrested militant said water was also scarce in the jungle. "There is a perennial water crisis in the hilly areas of the state. We were allowed to bathe only thrice a week," he said.

Debbarma said the NLFT's arsenal mainly comprised Chinese weapons, including rocket launchers. He said "ordinary militants" were ordered to kill and abduct people, but never told the motive. "Lower-rung militants do not know anything about the people they abduct or the ransom demanded by the outfit's leadership," Debbarma said.

The arrested rebel said punishment for failure in any operation was severe. "On August 14 last year, we failed to ambush a CRPF patrol on the Chhawmanu-Chhailengta road. We were caned for coming a cropper," he said.

Shortly before his arrest, Debbarma was promoted to the rank of "area commander" with a salary of Rs 5,000 per month. He was in charge of the outfit's Kanchanpur unit.

The arrested rebel told interrogators that he participated in several major operations, including the abduction of four Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activists from Kanchancherra on August. Asked if he ever felt repulsed by what he was told to do, Debbarma said, "I wept after killing a person from my village last year. I did not want to kill Harendra, but was forced to do so by my bosses, who said I would die if I disobeyed them."

Guwahati, April 22: CBI investigations into the sensational K Ganesh case, the Chief General Manager, Telecom (Task Force), North East Region who was nabbed at the LGB Airport in the city with Rs 25 lakh in cash way back on September 6, 1997 have revealed some startling disclosures impinging on national security.

The Rs 25 lakh in cash was seized from Sri Ganesh at the airport by the then Executive Magistrate, Kamrup, Sri Dinesh Sharma and a case was registered U/s 7 and 13 (1) (E) of the Prevention of Corruption act, 1988 read with 120 (B) of the IPC at Azara Police Station, Kamrup, vide Case No. 74/97 dated 6.9.97.

Further search of the official residence of Ganesh lead to recovery of Rs 4 lakh on September 7, 1997, making the total Rs 29 lakh approximately. This money was kept in a sealed trunk by Treasury officer, Kamrup on September 10, 1997, on the order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kamrup.

Examination of the seized currency revealed that it was drawn from as many as 50 banks of the entire NE region, Calcutta, Mumbai etc. During investigation by the CBI which took over the case in February, 1998, a startling fact came to light. One particular currency series of Rs 100 denomination bearing serial number 6 AT 258201 to 258300 (100x100 = Rs 10,000), seized from K Ganesh on September 6/7/1997 and kept in Kamrup Treasury on September 10, 1997 in sealed trunk was stated to be issued by RBI, Guwahati to SBI, Diphu branch on November 4, 1997 -- that is a duplicate currency was already in circulation even before it was officially issued for circulation.

The Reserve Bank of India, Guwahati issued the whole series from Serial No. GAT 200,000 to 300,000, that is a packet of currency worth Rs One crore including the seized currency numbers already listed hearing number 6AT 258201 to 258300.

The circulation of currency bearing the same number prior to issuance of the said currency in the market remains inexplicable given the fact that RBI experts on examination of the said seized currency found it to be genuine.

It appears that officials of the Security Press printing the currency and RBI officials are behind the circulation of the genuine currency but with duplicate numbers. At a time when the government has been blaming the ISI for pumping in forged currency into the NE region, it is not known what volume of duplicate currency is in circulation in the country. It is only by a chance investigation that such an unprecedented development has come to light.

It is an irony that the CBI officer who had been investigating the K Ganesh case and stumbled upon this duplicate currency has been shunted out of the case by his bosses.

Interestingly, soon after registration of the case with UBI, Sir K Ganesh is collusion with one Nimma Tshering Khrime, Ex-MLA of Arunachal Pradesh and presently National Executive Member of the BJP filed a petition in the Court of the Special Judge, Assam, claimed that the money was given by him to Sri K Ganesh for purchasing diamond jewellery from Chennai. This petition was however discussed and disallowed by the Court on the basis of investigation.

Investigation by the CBI Investigation Officer conclusively proved that the said money did not belong to Sri Khrime, who had filed a receipt dated September 4, 1997 with his petition purportedly showing the transaction of the said amount.

Agartala, April 23: They are everywhere -- from tea stalls and brick kilns to factories and construction sites. However, official statistics would have everyone believe that the number of child labourers in Tripura has come down drastically.

A 1991 survey found 24,204 child labourers in the state, but the figure was revised to 263 following another study conducted by the offices of district magistrates in 1997.

However, according to unofficial estimates, there are no less than 50,000 child labourers working in hazardous conditions.

Congress legislator Sudip Roy Barman, who plans to raise the issue in the Assembly, said, "I do not know what the surveys conducted by the government and various non-government organisations say. What I see are hundreds of child labourers everywhere in the state capital."