National Liberation Front of Tripura

National Liberation Front of Tripura
Participant in the Insurgency in Northeast India
Flag of the National Liberation Front of Tripura
Active	1989 – present
Ideology	Tripuri nationalism Separatism Christian extremism
Leaders	Biswamohan Debbarma Utpanna Tripura † Mukul Debbarma †
Area of operations	Tripura, India
Strength	550–850
Opponents	Government of Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (abbreviated NLFT) is a Tripuri nationalist organisation based in Tripura, India. It has an estimated 550 to 850 members.

The NLFT seeks to secede from India and establish an independent Tripuri state, and is an active participant in the Insurgency in Northeast India. 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 designated as a terrorist organisation in India.

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".

The NLFT has been described as engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs. The NLFT is listed as a terrorist organisation in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002. The state government contends that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT. In April 2000, according to the state government, the secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, Nagmanlal Halam, was arrested In April 2000 with explosives and confessed that for two years he had been buying explosives for the NLFT. In 2000, the NLFT threatened to kill Hindus celebrating the religious festival of Durga Puja. At least 20 Hindus in Tripura have been killed by the NLFT in two years for resisting forced conversion to Christianity. A leader of the Jamatia tribe, Rampada Jamatia, said that armed NLFT militants were forcibly converting tribal villagers to Christianity, which he said was a serious threat to Hinduism. It is believed that as many as 5,000 tribal villagers were forcibly converted from 1999 to 2001. These forcible conversions to Christianity, sometimes including the use of "rape as a means of intimidation," were noted by academics outside of India in 2007.