Agartala, July 31: A teenaged tribal girl was gangraped and burnt alive by militants of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) in South Tripura yesterday.

Police said six armed militants came looking for tribal farmer Dhaliram Reang at his house in the Karbook area under Natun Bazar police station at 12.30 pm. Both Reang and his wife Bidyapati were out cultivating their jhum (shifting cultivation) land. The militants found Reang’s daughter Kunjabati (15) sleeping alone in the hut and gangraped her. Since the girl recognised one of the militants, the rebels locked her up in the hut and set it on fire. As Reang’s house was located on a desolate upland, none of the neighbours could hear her cries for help.

Reang and his wife filed a complaint with Natun Bazar police station after they came home to the nightmare. No one has been arrested so far.

The post mortem conducted at Natun Bazar hospital has confirmed the gangrape.

In a similar incident on January 11 this year, another group of NLFT militants had kidnapped a tribal girl, Premlata (20), from her father Manna Tripura’s house in the Jamircherra area of Dhalai district. They gangraped her in the nearby jungle, hacked her to death and left the half-burnt body there.

Police sources said while only few incidents were reported to police stations, scores of girls and even housewives were regularly raped and molested by the militants.

It has been over a decade since the second phase of the so-called insurgency in Tripura began with regular killing of unarmed non-tribals, including women and children, and the forced displacement of lakhs of people.

Initially, the tribals escaped the murder and mayhem. But when the non-tribals left the interior areas, the backward tribals emerged as a major target for conversion, extortion and murder on political grounds. Worst of all, the women were raped, a crime once unknown in the tribal society of Tripura.