Make use of central forces: Centre to Gogoi
Centre tells Assam government to utilise the Central forces made available to it for anti-insurgency operations.
By Bharti Jain, TNN |
NEW DELHI: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi may have advised the state-based PSUs to step up guard in the wake of recent abduction-cum-killing of some of their top executives by militant outfits, but the Centre has told the state government to get its own house in order and properly utilise the Central forces made available to it for anti-insurgency operations.
According to a senior MHA official, Mr Gogoi’s fig leaf that the state government was not being able to give adequate protection to the PSUs and industry based in the state due to “inadequate” forces has not cut ice with the Centre which blames the rise in violence and abductions by the Ulfa on the failure of the state government to effectively deploy the Central forces for anti-insurgency operations rather than wasting them in static duties.
“There are enough Central forces in Assam for operations...it is up to the state government to utilise them optimally,” the MHA official told ET. The official also argued that it was neither practical nor possible to provide protection to each PSU facility and industrial unit operating in Assam or their employees. Instead, the official stressed, the right approach would be to strike at the root of the threat facing the industry by going all out against the insurgent outfits like Ulfa and decimating their strength and numbers by undertaking intelligence-based operations.
Assam has witnessed three killings of abducted PSU employees by the militant outfits within a span of less than a week. Senior FCI manager P C Ram, who was abducted in April this year by the Ulfa, was killed in a botched-up rescue operation on July 12, followed by the murder of another abducted PWD engineer Ajay Deka on Sunday. That very same day, Cement Corporation of India manager Kailash Nath Jha was abducted. He was found dead on Monday in Karbi Anglong.
The Centre, which faces a genuine constraint in making more para-military forces available to Assam, feels that the answer lies not in wasting the security personnel in static duties but in utilising them for the purpose for which they are meant: operations to crack down on hideouts of Ulfa and other militant outfits. This, it stressed, is possible only through proper intelligence back-up.
The message of the Centre to the Tarun Gogoi government is therefore loud and clear: Beef up the intelligence gathering and follow it up with targeted counter-operations on militant hideouts across the state.
Ulfa-sponsored violence has been on the upswing this year. Experts blame this on the Centre’s aborted peace initiative with the militant outfit last year. The short-lived peace move fell through after mediator People’s Consultative Group (PCG) failed to get an absentee Ulfa leadership to the negotiating table. Of course, the group happily regrouped and rearmed itself during the ceasefire period, springing back with greater firepower once the peace process was called off.
According to a senior MHA official, Mr Gogoi’s fig leaf that the state government was not being able to give adequate protection to the PSUs and industry based in the state due to “inadequate” forces has not cut ice with the Centre which blames the rise in violence and abductions by the Ulfa on the failure of the state government to effectively deploy the Central forces for anti-insurgency operations rather than wasting them in static duties.
“There are enough Central forces in Assam for operations...it is up to the state government to utilise them optimally,” the MHA official told ET. The official also argued that it was neither practical nor possible to provide protection to each PSU facility and industrial unit operating in Assam or their employees. Instead, the official stressed, the right approach would be to strike at the root of the threat facing the industry by going all out against the insurgent outfits like Ulfa and decimating their strength and numbers by undertaking intelligence-based operations.
Assam has witnessed three killings of abducted PSU employees by the militant outfits within a span of less than a week. Senior FCI manager P C Ram, who was abducted in April this year by the Ulfa, was killed in a botched-up rescue operation on July 12, followed by the murder of another abducted PWD engineer Ajay Deka on Sunday. That very same day, Cement Corporation of India manager Kailash Nath Jha was abducted. He was found dead on Monday in Karbi Anglong.
The Centre, which faces a genuine constraint in making more para-military forces available to Assam, feels that the answer lies not in wasting the security personnel in static duties but in utilising them for the purpose for which they are meant: operations to crack down on hideouts of Ulfa and other militant outfits. This, it stressed, is possible only through proper intelligence back-up.
The message of the Centre to the Tarun Gogoi government is therefore loud and clear: Beef up the intelligence gathering and follow it up with targeted counter-operations on militant hideouts across the state.
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Ulfa-sponsored violence has been on the upswing this year. Experts blame this on the Centre’s aborted peace initiative with the militant outfit last year. The short-lived peace move fell through after mediator People’s Consultative Group (PCG) failed to get an absentee Ulfa leadership to the negotiating table. Of course, the group happily regrouped and rearmed itself during the ceasefire period, springing back with greater firepower once the peace process was called off.
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