Agartala, Nov. 7: Militants of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) yesterday beheaded the mother of a youth they suspect to be a police informer.

The victim, identified as Bhaktilata Tripura, was a resident of Dhalai district. A witness to the killing quoted the assailants as saying that the woman “paid with her life for the sins of her son”.

On April 21, Mahamaya Debbarma, wife of CPM leader and Amarendra Nagar panchayat chairman Chandra Kumar Debbarma, was killed by suspected NLFT militants. Kironbala Debbarma, the CPM chairperson of Nabajaypara village panchayat under Khowai subdivision, was another woman who met the same fate. Kironbala’s two sons, Benoy and Uttam, and son-in-law Radhacharan Debbarma, were killed in the same attack.

In June, NLFT rebels shot dead CPM activist Rina Debbarma for ignoring a notice to visit their hideout at Khumlung, near the headquarters of the Autonomous District Council).

Khanjani Debbarma, another CPM member, was hacked to death on June 30 for refusing to toe the militants’ line. She was a resident of Mungiabari village under Teliamura police station of West Tripura district.

However, none of these killings evoked as strong a public reaction as the murder of Bhaktilata Tripura. Officials said the manner in which the middle-aged woman was killed indicated the level of barbarism to which the NLFT could stoop.

Public anger over the killing was, however, tempered by the return of six civilians who had been held hostage by a group of Bangladeshi criminals and members of the NLFT’s Nayanbasi Jamatya faction since October 2.

Sources said the six hostages — five others are still in captivity — were freed after their families paid hefty amounts of money to the militants. They reached Netaji Nagar village of Dharmanagar subdivision yesterday morning.