SHILLONG: The categorization of criminal groups as ‘militants’ will be a thing of the past if one goes by the stand of the police on the matter.
The word ‘militant outfit’ is in vogue for terming any criminal groups operating in State especially in Garo Hills.
“I have raised the matter in several meetings and took up the issue at various levels on the illogicality of calling any group formed by some criminals as militant outfit”, Additional DGP SK Jain told The Shillong Times. According to Jain, two or three organizations forming a group under a name cannot be termed as militant group.
“The terrorist groups which are banned are called militant groups and not otherwise”, the police official said
Earlier, former Chief Minister late BB Lyngdoh had termed these kind of anti-social elements in the State as a ‘bunch of criminals’ than militant outfits.
At least a dozen groups are operating in Garo Hills with the tag of ‘militant outfits’.
Most of these groups are breakaway factions of GNLA, ANVC and ANVC-B.
Former Meghalaya DGP, L. Sailo said over phone from Aizawl that the small groups mostly can be termed as ‘bands of criminals’.
“If the term of militant outfit is used, it sounds big or something heavy, but in reality several such groups are just band of criminals”, Sailo said
While the dictionary meaning of militant is someone who is having “a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause, the word terrorist is used to denote a ” person who resorts to the ” use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially forpolitical purposes”.
In this context, militancy in Northeast has been described by many leaders as a ‘cottage industry’ as several groups do not have any ideology, but engage in extortion to raise money.