The concept and practical application of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) has repeatedly discussed and then aborted because of strident opposition by chief ministers, including those of the Congress-ruled states. The same theme has reverberated year after year without any progress even while terror attacks are on the rise. Delhi could have achieved much more through a participatory approach where states could have been asked to suggest ways and means to strengthen and work around the present template around which the NCTC has been framed. This would have made it easier for states to fall in line rather than making them accept yet another top-down instrument to contain terror. In states like Meghalaya, militancy is devoid of ideology. It is pure and simple banditry executed with a boldness hitherto unseen.
The rest of the country too continues to bleed at a hundred different places. The recent incidents in Chhattisgarh where Congress leaders were mowed down by Maoists whose objective was probably to make the Union government sit up and take notice, are a cause of concern. It is evident that the Union government does not have a very coherent action plan to deal with Naxalism other than by reacting and launching search operations to find the culprits. As a result, many tribals have left their hearth and home and fled to other neighbouring states. They are petrified at what would be unleashed on them as retaliation against the Maoist attacks of May 26. As usual, villagers will be labelled suspects and will either be picked up or killed in fake encounters allegedly for being guilty by association.
Greedy cops
In the recent meeting of chief ministers with the Union home minister in Delhi, one wondered why Chidambaram who is no longer in-charge of home affairs, is prominently featured in this meeting. Is he still the de-facto home minister doing backseat driving? Meghalaya’s chief minister Mukul Sangma was reported to have launched a tirade against several militant groups of the Northeast. His senior colleague, the chief minister of Assam, also repeated his famous lines on the growing Maoist activities in Assam. Earlier, he had even asked for drone missiles to track them down. Interestingly the government of Tripura has done something remarkable. The Manik Sarkar government has withdrawn the Disturbed Areas Act from nine police stations, claiming that insurgency is on the wane. Why has Manik Sarkar succeeded where his counterparts elsewhere have failed? Tripura under Manik Sarkar has delivered good governance. State where militancy has spiralled has not been able to deliver. It is a simple analogy!
Both the chief ministers of Meghalaya and Assam have made a resounding pitch for more forces, more ammunition and I suppose more money as well to strengthen the police force. But is ammunition and money adequate to boost the morale of a dispirited force? Garo hills, is today, in a state of absolute anarchy. Gun-toting militants that have multiplies like amoeba are openly roaming around in public spaces with guns and there is no one to stop them. Even the articulate and cerebral Mukul Sangma seems to have lost grip of the affairs in Garo hills. Militancy has just snowballed over the past few months. Sangma should be focussing at the governance deficit in his state and of his government instead of lashing out at militants. Rogues will claim their space if they are allowed to. And the reason we have a police force is to control such law-breakers. Indiscipline in the police is rampant. A rapist cop was allowed to escape and is now absconding. Another rapist cop has been reinstated even before the final order is passed by the court of law on a case where he was accused of raping a schoolgirl in a city hotel.
Two days ago, the Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) which was started by a former cop, torched a public bus bound for Shillong from Garo hills. The militants gave the passengers just four minutes to collect their belongings and run out of the bus. Many students panicked and left without their bags. Their certificates and marksheets went up in flames along with the bus. The militants carried out their dare-devil act in the morning and not a cop was in sight. It would be fair to say that law and order has virtually collapsed in Garo hills and the chief minister and his team are floundering.
The cops in Garo hills, however, never fail in their duty of extorting money from cole-laden trucks. The militants do the same. This is the reason why militants do not give a damn about the police. They know the police are as greedy and venal as them except that the police wear khaki and the militants their fatigues. It sounds weird but SP-level cops send their drivers to collect money from coal-laden trucks and because there is no system of giving receipts since the collection is illegal, the drivers make a killing too. Some have become as rich as their masters. And we are talking law and order here? I am sure the cops benefit more from chaos than from orderliness. Chaos enables them to incur expenditures they need not account for. They can claim that money has been spent in intelligence gathering or some such bunkum. What intelligence do cops need in their area of command? And if militants are coming out in the open and harassing ordinary citizens in broad daylight, unhindered, what do the cops have to say? The system of accountability has just broken down and this is part of governance deficit.
Too late
The Meghalaya chief minister has been able to impress the Planning Commission and to get a bulky financial package for a number of schemes that look very attractive on paper. This time he succeeded in getting over Rs 4,000 crore. He is working on getting additional package for schemes he has personally crafted. But the question is whether these schemes will actually reach the people. The bureaucracy here is obtuse and vainglorious. Many of the “babus” do not know what happens in the field. They assume a lot of things and the schemes that are manufactured in the secretariat are often not implementable on the ground. But in the absence of any monitoring mechanism, money has just gone into private coffers of politicians and bureaucrats with militants getting a big chunk of it.
In Garo hills, militants have not spared even the MNREGA which is the UPA government’s flagship programme for the poor. Village employment council heads have been kidnapped by militants and they are asked to cough up Rs 10,000 out of the MNREGA for their release. Nothing can be worse than this! Yet the chief minister only bristles without showing that he means business as far as containing militancy is concerned. The ordinary citizens are today held under siege. They do not know where to turn to. Even young women are now enrolled into different militant outfits, some under duress others for a livelihood. I am not sure that Delhi knows of these shenanigans which are carrying on under the very nose of the law. The one thing that will bother Delhi is when terrorism becomes a full-blown disease and people begin to die like flies. By then it will be too late.
(The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com)
