ga rebels serve extortion notice to tea garden owners in Upper Assam
From a Correspondent
Jorhat, April 23: At a time when the tea gardens in upper Assam districts have been facing serious fincial crisis due to decrease of prices of green tea leaves, two ga militant outfits have allegedly served extortion notes to some tea garden owners located along the Assam-galand border in Jorhat, Golaghat and Sivasagar districts in the past few days.
According to sources, the NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K) have served such extortion notices to some tea garden owners for collecting funds from tea gardens located along the Assam-galand border. The two militant outfits have been serving extortion notes to the tea garden owners by issuing ultimatum to pay them within the period fixed by them. A few such tea garden owners have made complaints before police regarding the extortion of the ga outfits in the three districts but many others have not divulged the matter fearing to their respective persol security.
Deputy Inspector General of Police, Upper Assam, B P Rabha confirmed the activities of the ga militant groups in Upper Assam districts and said that adequate security forces had taken up all required measures to prevent such activities of the ga militant groups in Assam land.
“We have information about the movement of the ga militant outfits in the bordering areas and accordingly all required measures have been taken up to prevent all kinds of such illegal activities,” Rabha said. He added, “The militant groups were trying to carry on their activities during the assembly polls in the State. But we have deployed adequate security forces in all vulnerable areas to ensure protection of common people from any untoward incident.”
Sources also said the two ga militants have demanded crores of rupees from some big tea gardens and also threatened to kill or kidp the owners unless they fulfil their extortion demands within the stipulated period of time.
Besides several big tea gardens, there are hundreds of small tea gardens situated along the Assam-galand bordering areas in the three districts of Upper Assam where hundreds of unemployed Assamese youths have been engaged.
