Agartala, Nov. 12: The Kusharambari massacre, in which the National Liberation Front of Tripura gunned down eight Reang tribals at midnight on Monday, has raised the spectre of secret reprisal killings of family members of militants.

“The sinister possibility is very real as we have received feedback that the Reang community is deeply upset over the killing of innocent civilians, including women. The powerful Reang Cultural Forum of Tripura has also come out in protest against the killings,” a source in the special branch (intelligence wing) of state police said.

On Monday, the NLFT killed eight family members of four of the seven youths of Kusharambari village in Kanchanpur subdivision of North district who had snatched a rifle and some bullets from a cadre of the outfit and surrendered with those.

Sources said Tripura has seen gross human rights violations and secret killings, including relatives of militants, for the past two decades.

“The worst human rights violations was committed by the Tripura State Rifles in November 1996 when some of its jawans shot dead three tribal youths in Kutnabari village of Sadar district in cold blood after their vehicle was ambushed by Tiger Force militants,” a source said.

Another glaring example of human rights violations was the killing of three tribal school students in separate incidents in August 2003 after the Barlunga and Kamalnagar massacres by the Tiger Force.

“These are known killings by security forces but there have been other unreported killings of tribal civilians, including relatives of militants responsible for massacre of innocents,” a source said.

In December 1999, the Tiger Force had massacred 18 civilians at Panchabati market.

When the people of the area came to know the militants’ identity, they targeted their family members and buried the corpses at unknown locations.

Most of these incidents involved rival tribal and non-tribal communities.

However, since 2000, tribals, in retaliation to militant depredations, have killed family members of tribal rebels. Nabin Tripura, an NLFT commander, and Arun Debbarma, the outfit’s area commander in Dhalai and West districts, were lynched by tribal civilians.

The sources said while in Assam the secret killings of Ulfa relatives by the Sulfa allegedly had the blessings of the authorities, in Tripura, most of the killings were done by insurgency-hit civilians. “Our fear is that Reangs, who constitute the second largest tribal community of Tripura, may turn against the family members of the NLFT,” a source said.