ON October 12, the people of Tripura solemnly remembered eleven CPI(M) leaders and workers who, alongwith two security personnel, laid down their lives in Birchandramanu in southern Tripura in 1988 to keep the red flag flying. The killing took place under the Congress-TUJS tyrannical regime, which was the product of a sinister and secret pre-election deal between then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl, the supremo of the erstwhile TNV, an outlawed secessionist extremist outfit.

Like the current BJP-IPFT regime, the then Congress-led coalition government let loose a reign of terror in the state and launched a drive to eliminate CPI(M) leaders, workers and sympathizers. During the black regime, about 300 Party leaders, workers and supporters were killed by the ruling party miscreants. Throughout the state, many Party offices, including that in Birchandramanu, were forcibly closed by the ruling party hoodlums. Eleven party leaders, including ADC executive member Sridam Pal, and his two security guards were butchered inside the Party office in Birchandramanu in broad daylight when they made an attempt to reopen it. The police, anticipating public rage, did not even allow the relatives of the martyrs to take a last glimpse of them.

List of martyrs:

Sl. No. Name of Martyr               Party position
1.  Sridam Pal                           Party district secretariat member and ADC executive member
2.  Chhatramani Debbarma      Party DCM
3.  Sukharanjan Murasingh       Party LCM
4.  Nityahari Murasingh            Party LCM
5.  Sudhir Debnath                   Party LCM
6.  Lalit Noatia                          Party Member
7.  Bhadramani Murasingh       Party Member
8.  Gathiroy Murasingh             Party Member
9.  Purnachandra Noatia          Party Member
10.  Nitai Sarkar                       Supporter
11.  Biralal Das                         Supporter
12.  Ratan Datta                      Personal Guard
13.  Amal Biswas                    Personal Guard

This year, BJP goons occupied Birchandramanu and the place where the martyrs’ column stands from October 10 to prevent the CPI(M) from observing the day. The matter was brought to the notice of the police but they expressed their helplessness, making it clear that it was the official decision of the BJP-led government not to allow the CPI(M) to hold the central programme of observance of Martyrs’ Day there.

But, except in Birchandramanu, in most of the Party offices and at innumerable places, CPI(M) leaders and workers remembered the sacrifice of Birchandramanu martyrs and paid floral tributes to them. The sub-divisional committees arranged hall meetings in sub-divisional towns and Party leaders discussed the situation then and now. The speakers asserted that the Birchandramanu killings were nothing but a consequence of anti-communist repulsion of the ruling class who started anticipating loss of their grip over the government power.   

In a hall meeting in Agartala, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and former chief minister Manik Sarkar said the ruling class is more scared of Communist martyrs than the living ones. That is why Party comrades and the family members of the martyrs were not allowed to pay floral tributes at the martyrs’ column in Birchandramanu. The tribal region of then undivided Belonia sub-division was a glorious battleground led by the Communists against repressions of the government through levy collection, injustice meted out to tribal people by the forest department, exploitation by money-lenders and dishonest traders and contractors, deprivation of tenant farmers, etc., Sarkar said. He emphasized that the present generation must be made aware of these heroic struggles. CPI(M) Central Committee members Badal Chowdhury, Gautam Das and Rama Das were among those present in the meeting.