A parliamentary standing committee has expressed deep concern over a large number of kidnappings in Assam, mostly of women, and surge in insurgency in Arunachal Pradesh, which it termed as "alarming".
The parliamentary standing committee on home affairs, headed by P Chidambaram, in its report said that it was deeply worried that a large number of victims who were kidnapped or abducted in Assam before and during 2016 were yet to be recovered.
"Even more worrisome is the fact that a large majority, at more than 81 per cent, of victims are women. The committee is of the view that this may also point towards a connection between such abductions and human trafficking," the panel said in it report submitted to Rajya Sabha.
The committee, therefore, recommended that an inter-state investigation may be carried out to find out the reasons for this extremely high rate of kidnappings of women.
"The committee also recommends that sustained operations must be launched to trace and recover the victims of kidnappings and abductions. The committee desires that the ministry submit a detailed status note about the action taken to recover such victims," it said.
Referring to Arunachal Pradesh, the panel said unlike the overall Northeast region, which shows a declining trend of insurgency-related incidents and casualties suffered by the civilians, the state has seen a rise in the number of such incidents.
"The committee is alarmed to observe that in 2012, Arunachal Pradesh accounted for just 5 per cent of the incidents in the entire region, however, in 2017, it accounted for almost 20 per cent of the incidents in the region," the report said.
This is an indication of the fact that the security situation has deteriorated in Arunachal Pradesh vis-a-vis in the entire Northeast region, it said.
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