LUCKNOW: In order to check militant activities in Uttar Pradesh, the process of deploying the Indo Tibetan police on the 840-km long border of the State with Nepal will Start soon.
Disclosing this to UNI, State Director General of Police Prakash Singh said 7,000 State police and PAC personnel had already been trained as part of steps to deal with terrorism.
Expressing satisfaction over the operation “kalia mardan” launched last year by the State police to check militant violence in the Terai area, Singh said although “we had not so far been able to nab militants responsible for the massacre of 29 persons in forests of Pilibhit district last month, we are tightening our noose round them day by day.” He cited statistics to show that police campaign against militants during January-August this year was more successful than in the corresponding period last year. Singh said among other measures to deal with militant activities policemen in the militant-affected areas would be provided with modem fire arms and sophisticated communication equipment by the Center. These include a special pocket transistor besides self-loading rifle and AK-47 rifles. Senior police officials would be provided bullet-proof case and bullet-proof jackets.
Singh said Jawans of the Nagaland Armed Police specially trained for dealing with insurgency had been deployed in the Terai areas for combing operations.
He pointed out that operation “kalia mardan,” had been successful in the sense that it passed without any major militant incident happening.
During this period two militants were killed in police encounters in Shahajanpur and Nainital districts while 14 militants and their harborers were arrested under TADA.
He admitted that no big cache of arms was recovered during the campaign but raids at different places helped in uprooting militants from their shelters and four automatic and six SBL guns and a number of country-made weapons were seized.
When asked if he had received any complaint of the complicity of some local policemen with the militants, he said If any such complaint was received immediate action was taken. Police officers who were found lay in their duty have been transferred and more transfers can take place, if necessary, he added.
Singh ruled out the possibility of police-militants complicity in the Terai area as in Punjab saying that religious and casteist make-up of the area was different from Punjab.
In reply to another question he pointed out that supply of arms to militants in Terai was continuing.
Arms reached to them from Afghanistan via Punjab and to some extent through Nepal.
He said so far it could not be verified whether the Terai militants had any direct contact with the LTTE of Lanka, ULFA of Assam, and People’s War Group of Andhra Pradesh. However, it was certain that the Terai terrorism was an offshoot of Punjab terrorism.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 18, 1992
