Bandhs to protest deaths

Nagaon/Kokrajhar, May 8 : Normal life was thrown out of gear in the North Cachar Hills and Baksa districts today during two separate bandhs called to protest the deaths of three persons, including a student leader and a pastor, allegedly in the custody of security forces last week.

The 12-hour bandh in Baksa was called in protest against the killing of two youths on April 28 whom the army said were hardcore militants, but who, residents said, were innocent.

The 12-hour bandh called by the ASDC is in protest against the death of one of its senior party leaders allegedly in the custody of the Assam Rifles on Friday at Haflong.

NC Hills police said the bandh passed off peacefully. The family of the victim today received the body from the police after completion of the second post-mortem at GMCH and brought it to his birthplace, Dimapur, for cremation.

The middle-aged ASDC leader and pastor, Liden Jidung, was picked up from his residence in Haflong along with a party worker and a village headman on April 30. The next day, Assam Rifles handed over the body of Jidung to the police, claiming that he was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure and had died soon after interrogation.

The ASDC claimed that Jidung died of torture in the Assam Rifles camp.

The Baksa district bandh called by All Adivasi Students Association of Assam (AASAA) in protest against the deaths of two youths — its district vice-president Jayanta Sing and Rajesh Bandoa — in an alleged encounter with the army affected life in Adivasi-dominated areas like Mushalpur and Dumni.

Anil Kujur, president of the district unit of the AASAA, said they have filed an FIR against the army at Mushalpur police station for allegedly killing the youths in a fake encounter. The AASAA members will meet again tomorrow to discuss its future course of action.

Gun, convoy shield for trains in hills

Guwahati, April 17 : Dispur has chalked out a security plan to counter strikes by insurgents in Assam’s twin hill districts. It will set up light machine gun posts on trains running in North Cachar Hills and run passenger trains in convoys with pilot engines from Dimapur to Lumding.

The security arrangement follows four attacks by militant on trains in the twin hill districts of NC Hills and Karbi Anglong in the past week.

A highly placed source today said goods trains having LMG posts would soon start plying along the vulnerable Badarpur-Lumding route in NC Hills till the situation becomes normal.

To start with, each train will have two posts, one at the front and the other at the rear, manned by at least 10 security personnel. These posts will be set up in open wagons, giving a wider vision of the surroundings and more leg space to security personnel who will be protected by sandbags.

“It is an arrangement similar to the one used during a war to cope with sudden enemy fire. It will be tried first on goods trains and then on passenger trains. This has been necessitated as security personnel inside a compartment were ineffective in checking such attacks because of hindered vision. It is an old army proposal for the vulnerable NC Hills terrain,” the source said.

Railway sources said the police had placed a requisition for the wagons and it was trying to meet it.

Hoping that the new measure would succeed, the source said an LMG can hit a target 500 metres away while the AK series rifles and SLRs generally used by rebels can cover a distance of 100 to 200 metres.

With terror on trains frequently haunting the twin hill districts, the railways had also introduced bullet-proof engines and distributed bullet-proof jackets among security personnel and drivers to instil confidence in them for the smooth running of trains.

But the rebels continued to attack with impunity, disrupting train schedules and even leading to cancellations.

On April 10, suspected militants of the Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel Gorlosa) sprayed the Badarpur-Lumding Barak Valley Express with bullets in NC Hills district, killing one and injuring 17. On April 11, the outfit attacked a goods train in the district, killing two and injuring one.

On April 12, suspected Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front militants triggered two blasts on the Howrah-Dibrugarh Kamrup Express route in Karbi Anglong. While the train reached Diphu safely, the engine of the special security train, which is run ahead of a passenger train, was derailed by the second blast. The back-to-back attacks in the twin districts saw the NF Railway reschedule and cancel passenger trains for a few days.

On Monday, Dispur ordered resumption of train services after a high-level review by the chief secretary here. The meeting was attended by senior officials of the CRPF, BSF, railways, army, police and Intelligence.

The participants tried to find ways to neutralise the attacks by Dimasa and Karbi rebels to ensure smooth running of trains in the twin hill districts and the smooth conduct of elections.

It was decided that the army would be used for track domination (to sanitise and provide security cover to tracks) in the two districts.

The meeting also approved the railway’s proposal to run passenger trains in a convoy at an interval of 15 minutes between Lumding and Dimapur after the providential escape of the Howrah-Dibrugarh Kamrup Express on Sunday night. It also decided to run security pilot and advance pilot engines ahead of the convoy.

“The convoy plan was first tried on Monday night. There will be some inconvenience to the commuters, but it is for their safety and also makes a lot of sense,” the source said.

An attempt was made to run a goods train in NC Hills yesterday, but it had to be aborted following firing by DHD (J) rebels near Migrendisa railway station, 19km from Haflong town around noon.

Not difficult to find a job: an outsider’s perspective

Umesh Paswan’s wife and two children carry their freshly plucked cauliflowers from the field. Over 90% (random) of people from outside the state have replaced Nagas in almost every profession considered ‘mediocre’. (Morung Photo)

Dimapur: Far away from the bustle of Dimapur, spread across several acres of land close to the Assam border, cauliflowers, peas and chilli plantations cover the area like a green carpet.

Here, Umesh Paswan and his family have been toiling hard to make their living. Hit by rising prices, though, they have had to compromise with vegetable prices this year. In proximity with the Assam border, they can hardly compete with those vegetables that come in from there.

Umesh has no choice but to overlook those difficulties since he considers himself lucky enough to even being leased out two ‘bighas’ of land by a Zeliang man from Jalukie.

Not very far from there, across the other side of Dimapur, hundreds of daily wage earners enter the state every month in search of work. Holed up in suffocating temporary shelters near brick kilns, these people have only one thing in mind – to make their living.

Ignorant of the change in demography with some Naga villages having more aliens than local people, Nagas would rather earn easy money than plough their own land.

Closer home in the central part of the fast growing town, thousands of outsiders make their living doing jobs considered lowly for Nagas. These cart pullers, labourers, sweepers and others work against all odds to save enough to bring up children to become doctors and scientists. Umesh who has lived here since 1980 says much has changed for him since he arrived from Bihar.

The land that he cultivates is not very fertile but he is happy that he has a place where he can earn, he says.

“I could not in Bihar because I did not have land.”

Similarly for Sanjay Kumar, he got into his business – cart pulling – less than two weeks after his arrival in Dimapur. “It is not difficult to get a job,” Sanjay had told this daily in a chat up on January 3 last.

A landowner in Zani had also mentioned that he is happy leasing out land to “non-locals” because it makes things easier for him. Oblivious to the damage caused due to such slack mindset, Nagas have lost most ‘mediocre’ jobs to outsiders.

Despite the unaccounted number of outsiders replacing Nagas in so many jobs across the state, hard work still eludes many Nagas.

People like Umesh and Sanjay rush through their lives making the most of their everyday earnings while some Naga people consider them pests – how many would then replace them if need arose?