At last someone has had the courage to call out the extortion in this state that has been rising exponentially. From a few so-called pressure groups now the numbers have only grown and every group survives on extortion. No one really knows what these pressure groups do or what pressure they put on the government. The reason why some of the contractors taking up the national highway projects have packed up and left is because of the demand from sundry groups each stating that they are working for public welfare. With a plethora of “do gooders” around, why is Meghalaya dipping lower into the human development indices year after year?
The fact is that extortion has been around for a long time in this state and particularly in the city of Shillong. This rose phenomenally when underground outfits like HNLC and GNLA made it their trade mark and sent out demand notes with the ultimatum of “pay the money or pay with your life.” Most traders and business persons, both tribal and non-tribal, acquiesced to these demands right from 1992-93 onwards when these groups started their insurgent activities. Some businesspersons negotiated with the militant outfits to bring down the demand from say Rs 50,000 to 20,000. But all were paying for fear of their lives, more so when some business persons were gunned down in broad daylight. It was only in the year 2000 when RG Lyngdoh as Home Minister, filed an FIR against all those business houses and individuals that were suspected to be paying the militant organisations. This brought down extortion to a large extent. Today, the militant outfits are in peace talks although there are sources which claim that they are still on an extortion spree. With so many groups claiming to work for public interest but with each of them subsisting on extortion, businesses in Meghalaya from the smallest to the larger ones, including contracting firms are facing undue harassment.
The prices of essential commodities have sky-rocketed mainly because all the trucks coming to Meghalaya are taxed. Fruits, vegetables and fish are taxed; clothes merchants are taxed; even small and marginal businesses have to pay their share to keep themselves going. This has become a standard operating procedure with the administration looking the other way. It is only now when extortion has become rampant and business persons have revealed to the media their woes that police have said they will deal with the extortionists. Did the police not know this was happening all along? It is true that businesspersons have chosen the easy way out by not filing FIRs for fear of retribution but that’s not how crime is tackled. Crime that is not addressed timely will turn cancerous and eat into the vitals of society. Fighting back is the only survival mode.
