Saturday, April 26, 2025

‘A bunch of criminals’ or militants…..

Date:

Share post:

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.

Related articles

SRH all but end CSK’s chances

Chennai, April 25: Pacer Harshal Patel made the best use of a sluggish Chepauk surface as Sunrisers Hyderabad...

Railway infra, Kashmiri Pandits on terror target; security forces on alert

Srinagar, April 24: Security forces are on high alert after inputs suggested that terrorists are “actively planning” an...

Houses of 2 LeT terrorists bombed

Srinagar, April 25: The house of two Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let) terrorists, including the prime suspect of the Pahalgam terror...

Abhinav claims hat-trick as Meghalaya beat Arunachal

1st Little Masters Trophy Shillong, April 25: Abhinav Khanal took a hat-trick to set up a comprehensive seven-wicket victory...