More teeth for border outposts

Posted by Sinlung
Blueprint soon, says Assam DGP
Strict vigil
Silchar, Nov. 14: Dispur has decided to augment the strength of its police outposts on the inter-state boundaries along south Assam to tackle militant incursions.
The move comes in the wake of the attack by the Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic) on the 15 India Reserve Battalion (IRB) border outpost at Chekarcham, a remote village in Sonai block of Cachar district along Assam’s boundary with Mizoram and Manipur, on Thursday night. The rebels took away a large cache of arms and ammunition and left four policemen injured.
Assam director-general of police Shankar Barua said his department was concerned over the mayhem perpetrated by the Hmar militants and proposed to equip the south Assam border outposts with the necessary wherewithal to allow them area domination.
A blueprint for overhauling the border outposts will be ready soon, he added.
Barua said the state police would soon be armed with modern weapons to make them more effective against gun-toting militants.
The 15 IRB personnel manning the Chekarcham outpost were not only outnumbered but were also out-gunned by the militants’ AK-47s.
The DGP, who is in Cachar on a two-day tour, held elaborate talks with senior police officials of Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts of south Assam on these issues and the law and order situation there yesterday and today.
A police official said the DGP was briefed last night on the raid mounted by the Hmar rebels on the IRB camp, which is located on top of a hillock at Chekarcham, and the steps taken to thwart such ingress from across the border.
Troops from the army’s 11 artillery field regiment and combatants from 147 CRPF were combing the jungles near Chekarcham along the Assam-Mizoram-Manipur border to track down the invaders.
Reinforcements have been sent to the area over the past two days to restore normalcy as people of the area, apprehensive of yet another attack or abductions by Hmar rebels, are deserting their houses to take shelter in safer places.
Expressing concern over the “daring attack” by the Hmar rebels, the BJP MP from Cachar in the Lok Sabha and former Union minister, Kabindra Purakayastha, said: “If the police could not save themselves, how can they ensure the safety of others from the hands of the militants?”