A parliamentary standing committee on Union Ministry of Home Affairs has pointed out deteriorating law and order situation in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Committee is alarmed to observe that in 2012, Arunachal Pradesh accounted for just five percent of the incidents in the entire region, however, in 2017, it accounted for almost 20 per cent of the incidents in the region.
“This is an indication of the fact that the security situation has deteriorated in the state of Arunachal Pradesh vis-a-vis the entire north-eastern region,” the committee in its reports submitted in the Rajya Sabha said.
The committee has observed that the State is affected by the spill-over militant activities of Naga insurgents belonging to the Nagaland-based underground factions of NSCN (NSCN/IM, NSCN/K, NSCN/R and NSCN/KN), in Tirap, Changlang, and Longding districts.
The two major NSCN factions, NSCN/IM and NSCN/K, are engaged in a battle for supremacy in these three districts, including forced recruitment to their cadres, area domination, kidnappings and extortions etc.
The cadres of Assam-based NDFB(S) and ULFA(I) are also sometimes active, seeking shelter and transit in the State, particularly in the areas bordering Assam and Myanmar.
Sometimes, the Assam-based outfits try to affect the political and economic activities in the State with an aim of raising funds through extortions.
The Committee while taking into account the submission of the Ministry of Home Affairs that Arunachal Pradesh has no active insurgent group and is affected by the spill-over activities of the insurgent groups based in Nagaland and Assam, feels that the Government must improve the security situation in the areas of Arunachal Pradesh that are located along the India-Myanmar border.
The Committee, in this connection, recommended that the Ministry of Home Affairs must encourage, facilitate and strengthen the interaction and co-operation between the police forces of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to obviate any unwarranted incidents along the border areas of Arunachal Pradesh.
The Committee while perusing the data of ‘Crime in India–2016’ of cases of kidnapping and extortion in Arunachal Pradesh published by the National Crime Records Bureau, found the number of such cases to be 146 in 2014, 175 in 2015 and 112 in 2016.
“This shows that the number of kidnapping and abduction cases in Arunachal Pradesh remain high vis-à-vis the State’s population,” the standing committee report said.