Agartala, Nov. 27: The Tripura government has sought assistance from Interpol to track down two hardcore All Tripura Tiger Force militants — Jagadish Debbarma and Satyaranjan Debbarma — from the outfit’s hideout in Bangladesh.

Both militants were involved in the serial bomb blasts that rocked Agartala on October 1.

The state government sought the assistance from Interpol formally through a letter to the Union home ministry which asked the CBI, the nodal agency of Interpol in India, to take up the issue with the international investigating agency.

“Shortly after the blasts, Jagadish and Satyaranjan fled to Bangladesh and are still untraced though nine persons are still in custody because of their involvement in the blasts,” a police source said.

A senior police officer involved in the investigations said the issue had been taken up with the Union home ministry at the highest level. Union home minister Shivraj Patil has told chief minister Manik Sarkar that the CBI was already in touch with Interpol about the two fugitives.

The officer, however, admitted that the state police were “actually caught napping” when the blasts occurred before Id and Durga Puja.

“We had never experienced urban terror in Tripura and Agartala had always been a peaceful town even at the height of tribal insurgency in the interior areas,” the police officer said. He said the way a live bomb had been detonated at Motor Stand in an attempt to defuse it betrayed the “ineptitude and lack of experience of the state police in coping with such situations”.

However, the official said post blast, a series of measures has been taken to strengthen the police and their ability to tackle such situations. “A group of 20 police officers has been selected for undergoing training in bomb disposal and defusing outside the state,” the officer said.

Apart from this, the government was also planning to strengthen its dog squad.

“Our pack of trackers is well trained but we are short of sniffer dogs and efforts are being made to make up for this deficiency,” the officer said.