Extortion in the garb of highway protection

TURA: Less than a year ago, the State Government had launched a programme to provide protection to commuters by placing police patrol cars at ‘strategic’ locations to dither crimes on the national highways.
These highway patrol vehicles were launched in vulnerable sections of the national highways passing through the State to ensure quick and effective police response during incidents.
With the passage of time, some of the men in uniform appear to have transformed their duty of protection to extortion as can be gauged from an incident involving a patrol team on the NH-51 connecting Tura in Garo Hills with Paikan in neighbouring Assam.
A mini truck ferrying in furniture from Dudhnoi town in Assam for a business start-up of a local entrepreneur in Tura was allegedly flagged down on the Rongram-Jengjal route of NH-51 on Sunday afternoon by a highway patrol team on the pretext of checking permit and registration.
The driver and his associate were allegedly allowed to proceed only after paying the uniformed men a ‘tea tax’ of a hundred rupees.
There are hundreds of public transport vehicles entering Garo Hills carrying goods through the NH-51 every other day and it is not being ruled out that many of the vulnerable transporters may have been compelled to part with some amount of money to the men in khaki.