The dreaded extremist who led an armed insurgency against Indian sovereignty to achieve a separate tribal homeland had to face hunger and left without treatment for days. He even could not pay his stannous train journey for five days to give him up to the police at Teliamura, 30 km east of Agartala, on Friday night.
Nayanabasi Jamatia was self style chief of a faction of the National Liberation Front of Tripura, popularly known as NLFT (NB) after it parted ways from the main group in 2001. The former trooper of the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) was ‘most wanted’ in records of the police and intelligence agencies for his involvement in plentiful incidents of killing, kidnapping, extortion and bloody ambush on security forces.
“He is sick; he has serious hand injuries and looks completely exhausted. It is hard to recognise him from a look”, an officer of the special branch (SB) of police said on Saturday. Jamatia is currently lodged in a SB cell in Agartala where he is questioned by senior security officers, but also provided medical attention.
Nayanbasi Jamatia and his henchmen were lodged in a peace dialogue with the state government and the union home ministry in 2004 after a ‘cease fire arrangement’ was struck. However he got annoyed with arrest of TSR havildar Rohid Mia, accused of conniving with the NLFT to kill eight security personnel and loot a huge cache of weapons, from the vicinity where the extremist leaders were given accommodation in Agartala during peace process.
The beleaguered extremist leader suddenly disappeared, but his fellow leaders and extremists, surrendered on December 22, 2004 at strength of a peace agreement. The returnees were given rehabilitation and monetary support to start afresh in mainstream of life.
Jamatia reportedly returned to his hideout in Bangladesh, but was caught in connection with a criminal incident and spent some years in jail. “He was recently freed from jail and managed to cross over to Malda in West Bengal on August 5 from where he started journey in trains to reach his home at Trishabari in Teliamura”, the officer informed on basis of inputs they got from Jamatia.
Police informed his father and son escorted him to Teliamura sub-division police officer Chandan Saha late Friday night. The extremist leader surrendered ending his association with underground movement.
Sources said Jamatia was suffering from hunger and could not get treatment for want of money and even managed his train journeys without tickets. One of his family members said they didn’t recognise him immediately when he entered the house.
Nayanbasi Jamatia’s longtime associate and former vice president of BM faction of the NLFT, Buchung Borok, welcomed his decision to surrender. “We fail to understand why he left the peace process in 2004”, Mr Borok told The Hindu adding that it was good that he (Jamatia) too understood there is no alternative to peace.
He would be produced in a court on Sunday.
