A top militant of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) along with two other rebels have surrendered in Tripura, police said here on Sunday."Self-styled deputy chief of the NLFT's armed wing Atharababu Halam and two others deposited their arms and ammunition before Director General of Police K. Nagaraj on Saturday," Tripura Police spokesman Uttam Kumar Bhowmik told IANS."Senior police officers would now interrogate the rebels to know the details about the NLFT and its base in Bangladesh," Bhowmik said, adding that Halam, 42, surrendered along with his wife and four daughters.
The guerrillas left their hideout in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts and entered the state to surrender, the police officer said.
He said two other militants, who surrendered, were self-styled sergeant major Uttam Kumar Jamatia and self-styled corporal Krishna Mohan Debbarma. Bhowmik said: "Halam was earlier a senior member of the erstwhile militant outfit-turned-political party Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) and surrendered before the government along with other TNV cadres in 1988.""He got a government job in education department as per the provisions of the tri-partite accord signed between the central and Tripura governments, and TNV but in 1993 he left the job and joined NLFT."
Tripura Police had declared a reward of Rs.5 lakh to anyone who could give information about Halam's whereabouts.An official statement here said Superintendent of Police (special branch) Arindam Nath and Border Security Force Inspector General B.N. Sharma played a key role in Halam's surrender.Tripura's two banned militant groups - NLFT and All Tripura Tiger Force - have been seeking secession of Tripura from India. Both the groups have their bases in neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar.