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Insurgency beleaguered North East India is virtually
turning into a powder keg with alarming rise in the use and
stock piling of land mines and Improvised Explosive Devices by
underground organizations.
The non-state armed actors are increasingly depending on the
IEDs as it provides cheap and easy alternative to traditional
landmines and small arms and also for the fact that it could
wreck havoc with devastating affect on security forces under
militant ambush and create panic in the civil society.
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Experts monitoring the trend said in many places, especially in
Manipur, villagers remain under perpetual threat of stepping on
landmines as insurgents mine roads, fields and even courtyards
around dwelling houses so as to prevent military movements and
raids.
At present many of the North East militant outfits maintain a
stockpile of IEDs-the exact figure of the stock is anybody’s
guess though.
But it is mainly the ULFA, ATTF and Meitei outfits that prefer
frequent use of explosive devices-mostly ‘command-activated’
devices. Of about 38 militant out fits in the region only two
groups NSCN (IM) in October 2003 and Kuki National Organization
in August 2006 renounced use of antipersonnel landmines.
A report from central government in December 2006 said, North
east militant groups continue to increasingly resort to the
indiscriminate use of improvised explosive devices and mines".
“ There were reports of new use of mines and improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) in many parts of India in 2006 and
2007, particularly in Manipur and other areas of northeast
India”, the report said.
An independent study of the Landmine Monitor Report, 2007 also
supported the government version. According to the report in
recent years NE states have witnessed an increase in the use of
explosive devices. Main perpetrators for blasts were ULFA, the
United National Liberation Front, the People’s Liberation Army
in Manipur, and the All Tripura Tigers Force.
The ULFA seems to have no scruple about the use of IEDs as they
often plant explosives in school ground and crowded places to
kill soft targets and achieve maximum casualties and mileage as
well.
The Land Mine Montor report said, ULFA’s explosive attacks were
frequently reported as “landmines,” but Landmine Monitor did not
find any incident involving victim-activated explosive devices,
and there were no known cases of use of factory-made
antipersonnel landmines”.
“Two incidents in November and December 2006, however, might
have involved antivehicle mines”, the Landmine monitor said.
The ominous trend of IED is obvious from the fact that in 2007
in Assam alone there were 68 blasts that left behind 120 dead
and 522 injured. In 2006 86 IED detonations killed 60 and
injured 387 in this state.
In Manipur the UNLF was believed to have been planting landmines
in the hill districts of Tamenglong, Chandel and Churachandpur
in 2006 and 2007 though the outfit did not admit it.
Chandel district, according to the report seemed to be worst
affected area in Manipur as far as landmines are concerned.
In January 2007 about 400 people from eight villages in the
Kenjoi block of Chandel district moved to the Laijang Grouping
Centre, a resettlement site outside Moreh on the Burma border.[
The villagers could not return to their respective villages for
fear of stepping on landmines laid by militants.
Only on December 16 last eight persons were killed in an IED
blast in Manipur.
In Tripura ATTF had frequently triggered IED blasts killing more
than 50 security force personnel and civilians as well, though
for the last few years the intensity of such explosions has
reduced to a great extent.
The worst IED case was at remote Raishyabari (South Tripura) in
1998
when ATTF militants detonated an explosive killing 16 persons-
nine among them BSF jawans and others border road construction
workers. The incident was unique as the militants pulled off the
ambush from sitting across the border in Bangladesh’s Chittagong
Hill Tracts from where they used wire to detonate the IED. The
BSF and the laborers were traveling in a truck on the road
running along extreme border.
The last major IED ambush was in 2003 in which six policemen
were killed at Barkathal area in West Tripura District. Before
that in 2000 five CISF jawans were killed when they were
escorting ONGC engineers in the same district.
There were also IED blasts on National High 44 -connecting
Agartala with rest of the country via Assam by road- on which
passenger vehicles are escorted by CRPF. The IED blasts killed
many CRPF jawans. The IED blast took place in Tripura at
Gandacherra market in Dhalai district just before Durga Puja in
which one person was killed.
“While in Assam and Manipur the urban militants detonate IEDs in
crowded places- even in school grounds to spawn death among soft
targets, in Tripura the explosions are generally targeted at the
security forces”, pointed out a senior police officer here.
He maintained that modus operandi in most of the cases was
identical here: The militants would plant an IED – remote device
or wire detonated- in bridge and as the unsuspecting police or
security convoy or patrol passes through it, they would let the
IED go off. Usually it is either the last or the front vehicle
that is targeted. As the vehicle that comes under the IED's
devastating impact is blown off and plunges down on the river or
the gorge, the following ones shattered by the effect come to
abrupt halt. The militants lying in ambush would then rain
bullets from automatics on the security personnel who by then
taken aback would often simply become sitting duck. The shock
element in IED blast remained devastating.
Experts dealing with the landmines and IEDs also sounded alarm
at the increase of such explosives stockpile- approximately 40
lakhs at this point of time- in the country. In fact, India has
been clubbed with Russia, China and Pakistan, as the largest
producers, even if not an active user, of antipersonnel
landmines in the world.
At state level in India the landmines and IEDs are actually used
for border protection and in the conflict endangered zones.
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