SHILLONG, April 14: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday admitted that unemployment was making some youths in Meghalaya pick up arms.
He also said militancy was less of a problem and more of an outcome of socio-economic issues.
His statement has assumed significance after members of a new outfit named Lawei ba Phyrnai claimed they have taken to terrorism due to the problem of unemployment.
Sangma said governments across the world have been exploring ways to tackle the unemployment issue. The Meghalaya government has been focussing on many programmes related to entrepreneurship to promote self-employment, he said.
“Whether it is the food processing or the tourism sector or any small-scale industry, we have come up with different programmes on mission mode for creating jobs for the youths,” the CM said.
The government has put in efforts to make the youth employable, he added.
Lawei ba Phyrnai ‘founder’
in 4-day police custody
A local court on Thursday remanded the ‘founder’ of the group called Lawei ba Phyrnai to four days in police custody. The Meghalaya police had arrested the accused in connection with a series of threatening emails sent to the government.
Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui said the arrested person hails from Shillong and had hacked email IDs to threaten the chief minister and top police and government officers.
Assistant Inspector-General of Police (A), GK Iangrai said the group claiming to have been formed by 37 “well qualified and talented jobless youths” had sent the threat email to the chief minister on April 1.
Claiming to possess “free sponsored arms and ammunition”, the outfit threatened to plant bombs in various educational institutions. Considering the seriousness of the threat, a case was registered with the Crime Branch police station.
The publicity secretary of Lawei ba Phyrnai, claiming to be a school teacher whose contract was terminated, sent another email on April 7. The sender placed the “1st demand” of the group – the release of former extremist-turned-MLA Julius Kitbok Dorphang, failing which a lower primary school would be blown up.
A second case was subsequently registered against the outfit at the Cyber Crime Wing police station.
In another such email, the group claimed that its organising secretary was a “tech expert software engineer” and tracking its members was futile.
Iangrai said the police formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe both cases. The police also beefed up security at various educational institutions in view of the outfit’s threat.
The SIT analysed the available data to zero in on the person who sent all the emails on behalf of the outfit. The main accused was arrested from his place of work on April 13. Incriminating materials including the mobile phone used to send the emails were recovered from his possession.