National Liberation Front of Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (or NLFT) is a Tripuri nationalist Christian terrorist organisation based in Tripura, India. It contains an estimated 550-850 members. The NLFT seeks to secede from India and establish an independent Tripuri state, and has actively participated in the Tripura Rebellion. The NLFT manifesto says that they want to expand what they describe as the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ in Tripura.

The NLFT is currently proscribed as a terrorist organisation in India.

History

The Baptist Church of Tripura was initially set up by missionaries from New Zealand in the 1940s. Despite their efforts, even until the 1980s, only a few thousand people in Tripura had converted to Christianity. In the aftermath of one of the worst ethnic riots, the NLFT was born in 1989 with the backing of the Baptist Church of Tripura. Since then, the NLFT has been advancing its cause through armed rebellion. In its constitution, the organisation claims to represent the indigenous population which it claims has been marginalised by "the subjugation policy of imperialist Hindustani (India)"; its constitution makes no mention of any specific religion and claims to extend membership to "any person irrespective of caste, sex or creed".