Harassment to truck drivers

This refers to the news published in your esteemed daily (The Sentinel, July 24) under the caption, 'Truck drivers protest harassment by local youths.' It emerges from the news that truck drivers carrying goods to Arunachal Pradesh are almost regularly harassed by the local goons at Shantipur gate and beyond the Assam-Arunachal border. It is reported that the local goons of Shantipur, Roing and other places of Lower and Upper Dibang valley let loose a reign of terror on the hapless truck drivers. The matter had come to such a pass that the truck drivers had to resort to protest in the Assam side of Shantipur gate and decided not to carry any goods to Arunachal Pradesh nor allowing any truck of that the state to enter Assam. The matter, however, was settled by police of both the States. How long the youths would refrain from harassing the truck drivers that is of course lies in the realm of speculation. Likewise some youths of Nagaland too tyrannize over the truck drivers of Assam. We could see how there have been road blockades resorted to by the students union and stopping movements of Assam trucks carrying essential commodities to Nagaland. This sort of harassment meted out to truck drivers should be stopped forthwith, be it is Arunachal Pradesh or Nagaland or any other places. Police have pivotal role to play.

Ashok Bordoloi,

Dibrugarh