“Pilferage of development funds by militant groups is hurting our efforts to improve the lives of the people of the region”, were the strong words that came from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the chief ministers of North East.
The caveat came at the chief ministers’ conference, held at New Delhi on Monday, and is expected to raise a few eyebrows among the top political executives of the region, particularly those belonging to the Congress party.
Singh said that the answers to “these problems lie in strengthening the law and order capabilities of the states concerned and in reasserting and rebuilding normal democratic political and developmental processes. More proactive state police forces reducing reliance on central armed police forces would be a useful step forward.”
The Prime Minister hoped that implementation of infrastructure projects in the region would create conditions for the return of normalcy.
With extortion, kidnapping and other such crimes by militant outfits still a cause of concern, Singh termed the situation in the North Eastern states as “complex”. “The situation in some of our North-Eastern states has, however, remained complex. There was some improvement in terms of incidents of violence, but there is no question that much remains to be done to restore calm and eliminate extortion, kidnapping and other crimes by militant or extremist groups on the pretext of ethnic identity,” said the Prime Minister.
At the conference, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi rather harped on the “presence” of Maoists in the state.
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Gogoi has asked the Centre for inclusion of the state in the framework of development and security schemes, including the integrated action plan (IAP) that constitute the strategy against Left-wing extremism.
"The Maoist movement is at a nascent stage but has the potential to grow into a major threat since links have already been established with affected states like Jharkhand and Orissa, and there is a definite Maoist presence in Upper Assam districts,’’ Gogoi said at the chief ministers’ conference on internal security in New Delhi on Monday. He added that 21 Maoist cadres had been arrested in Assam so far and several of them had “confessed to having been trained by guerrillas in other states.”
Union home minister P Chidambaram too acknowledged the fact that presence of Maoists in the state and region was growing of late.
“Assam has emerged as the new theatre of Maoist activity. There are also inputs about the links of CPI (Maoist) with insurgent groups in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh,” said the Union home minister.
Chidambaram also added: “In the North Eastern states, nearly all major groups are in talks with the government. I am, therefore, confident that 2012 will see further advancement in bringing peace and development to these states. The success stories of 2011 were the dramatic improvement in the internal security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and in the North Eastern states.”
Gogoi has asked for “pre-emptive action to thwart the spread of the CPI-Maoist” in Assam by the Centre by including the state within the framework of existing development and security schemes of the Centre, including integrated action plan, that constitute counter-Maoist strategy’’.