Hardcore NLFT militant serving life term, flee from Tripura’s central jail

A hardcore militant of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) Swarna Kumar Tripura, who was serving life imprisonment in multiple cases, escaped from the central jail in Tripura’s Sepahijala district on Tuesday.

Police said that the disappearance of the dreaded extremist from the Central jail was noticed on Tuesday morning during the routine checkup of inmates by the jail authorities.

According to a police official here the NLFT cadre was sentenced to life imprisonment after he was found guilty in multiple cases including murder and kidnapping charges and was lodged in the central jail.

The police have alerted all the police stations across the state and launched an intensive search operation to locate the convict.

The Border Security Force (BSF) has also been put on high alert to prevent the fleeing militant to crossing over to neighbouring Bangladesh, which shares an 856 km border with Tripura.

The militant had escaped twice from the Central jail in 2016 and Kanchanpur sub-jail in 2022. He was rearrested early in 2023 and since then he was in the Central jail. 

The Superintendent of Police(SP) of Sepahijala district  Bogati Jagadeeswar Reddy visited the central jail in Bishalgarh to take stock of the situation after the jailbreak. 

An inquiry has been initiated to find out how the prisoner escaped from the high-security jail premises, he said, adding the CCTV footage is also being checked. There are around 650 inmates in the Central jail, 30 km south of here. Based in Bangladesh, the NLFT is a banned militant outfit.