Northeast to have new mechanism to tackle militants

Agartala, Nov 4 : To tackle guerrilla groups operating in India's northeast more effectively, a Regional Cooperation Mechanism (RCM) would soon be set up under which the police of the eight states, the central paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies would work in close coordination, a senior official said here Wednesday.

The proposed RCM will be of help to the security agencies since guerrilla groups have developed links with each other and were using each other's territory to move about easily.

"Under the proposed RCM, district police chiefs of all the eight northeastern states, intelligence and Central Para Military Force (CPMF) officials would work in close coordination and share information among each other," Tripura Director General of police (DGP) Pranay Sahay told IANS.

"The RCM is critically indispensable because there are interlinkages and collaboration among the various militant outfits of the region. Besides, militants of one state have been using the territory of other neighbouring states."

The formation of the RCM and finalisation of other strategies to deal with the terrorists and effective border management were adopted at a meeting in Shillong, where police and intelligence chiefs of the northeastern states along with senior officials of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Assam Rifles, Army and Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were present.

West Bengal DGP Bhupinder Singh also participated in the two-day meeting held Friday and Saturday in the Meghalaya capital.

Militant groups like "All Tripura Tiger force (ATTF), United Liberation Front of Asom, Kamotapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) of West Bengal and Manipur's People's Liberation Front (MPLF) have shaped up an alliance to help each other and conduct joint operations. The Shillong summit drew up tactics to deal with this development," the Tripura DGP added.

"The meeting also chalked out some line of action to carry out joint operations against the militants who are moving from one state to another and travelling to neighbouring countries using different states as corridors," Sahay said, adding that state police and the CPMF would share the interrogation reports of surrendered and arrested militants.

The Shillong meeting also requested the union home ministry to set up an arms depot in northeast India, so that the states can easily procure sophisticated arms and ammunition. At present the northeastern states have been purchasing arms and ammunition from the north and south Indian states, resulting in huge wastage of money and time, he said.

The northeast DGPs have also urged the centre to allow them to increase the strength of the Mobile Task Force (MTF) and Prevention of Infiltration Force (PIF) to check illegal infiltration from across the border.

The northeastern states, especially Manipur and Tripura, have also pressed upon the centre to sanction wages for the Special Police Officers (SPO) in line with Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh.

The union home ministry has been providing wages of Rs.3,000 and Rs.1,800 to SPOs of Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh respectively, while for the northeastern states it was Rs.500. The SPOs, who are recruited from among the local youth, are helping the regular forces to deal with the terrorists.

"The northeastern states have also expressed their inability to bear the 10 percent deployment cost of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the region," he said.

According to latest report of the union home ministry, there are some 22 major militant groups active in India's northeast region, which shares borders with China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan.

--IANS