26 militant camps across Bangladesh border: Manik Sarkar

New Delhi, Sep 25 (UNI) Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today said there were at least twenty six militant camps operating in the adjoining Bangladesh territory.

Addressing newsmen soon after inaugurating the renovated and ultra modern Tripura emporium ''Purbasha'' here, Mr Sarkar said most of these insurgent groups had internatonal links including supports from the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.

He said insurgency in Tripura was not the problem of the State alone but of the entire region and the Centre should tackle it in a multi-pronged way with a national perspective.

This included dialogue with the Bangladesh government for not allowing these groups to operate from their lands against the disintegration of India.

Mr Sarkar also expressed regret that even after 59 years of India's independence, not just Tripura but the entire North-Eastern region was being totally neglected which had virtually forced a section of the youth to pick up arms against the present system.

He said economy could not grow where there was no growth and no development in infrastructure had taken place over the past sixty years.

He said in the name of roads, whatever was there was made by the Britishers and beyond that, nothing was being made.

Mr Sarkar said there were eight states in the region and except Asom, no one had the rail link with the main land. Similarly, air connectivity was also very poor.

''Another important factor is the communication network which is so poor that even if I as the Chief Minister want to contact my Block Development Officers and some Sub Divisional Magistrates, I cannot contact them.

''This has been informed to the Centre on several occasions but now we have decided to invite the Communication Minister to visit our State and personally feel the heat of communication services there,'' he added.

Mr Sarkar said the Government should take up the development of the entire North-East on a war footing so that the people should not feel cut off from the main land India.

The Chief Minister said, ''I will not be surprised if a large number of people from Delhi say they do not know the name of Tripura's Capital.'' With the commissioning of this modern State emporium ''Purbasha'', the handicrafts from State would substantially go up which would go a long way to help the economic growth of the artisans, he added.

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