Food for Thought

Food for Thought

The dastardly incident of arson and murder at Ramsingh Chapori in Dibrugarh district last week has once again underlined how pervasive the menace of extortion continues to be in Assam. Police investigation is on and some arrests have been made; it is being alleged that the murderous assault on cowherds at a sandbar off the Brahmaputra shore was carried out for refusal to donate Rs 1,85,000 for foundation day of TMPK, a students’ organization.

Thatched huts of cowherds were torched, a cowherd was brutally hacked to death and five others seriously injured by assailants wielding sharp weapons. The cowherds were thus made to pay heavily for turning down extortion demands, which may likely have been beyond their ability to meet anyway. The incident again drives home the point that in vast stretches across the State, the pernicious extortion culture holds sway. After militant groups take their lion’s share, it is the turn of sundry students’ and people’s organizations and rogue cops to make their demands. Public or private enterprises, tea gardens, petty traders, salaried people — all must pay up or else.

For quite some time, the situation has been so bad that even dirt poor farmers and laborers are being forced to part with their meager earnings. Growing something in the fields and managing to sell it (never mind the low prices in an exploitative market) or paltry wages earned for a day of backbreaking work — invite goonda tax. Assam has more than its share of extortion cases, and intimidation, abductions and beatings are all too common. Anti-extortion cells have been set up in the State police force, but these have miserably failed to stamp out such nuisance. The extent of the rot is such that Guwahati police early this month arrested four cops and home guards stationed at Geetanagar police station for demanding money while on patrol from a motorist. Extortion under various guises and illegal syndicates imposing ‘taxes’ on common goods are but two aspects of a rapacious culture that has long been the bane of the State. It is a deterrent to not just growth of capital (from outside or homegrown), but also acts as a disincentive to any sort of honest labor.

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