Abductions have become the order of the day in the Garo Hills region of Meghalaya, comprising of five districts. While at least 15 persons have been abducted by different unidentified groups in the past few weeks, have remained untraced, the police is looking at adopting a new strategy to end such incidents. “There has been a sudden spate on the number of incidents of abductions in the past few weeks,” admitted Meghalaya DGP Rajiv Mehta, who toured the region on Tuesday and Wednesday to make an on-the-spot assessment as also to draw up a better strategy to tackle the menace. [related-post] He also said that in most cases, the people involved are not members of the known militant groups like the Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) or the United Achik Liberation Army (UALA). “These are handiwork of purely criminal groups which have somehow procured a couple of pistols and revolvers and are abducting anyone who they find in front of them. Some of them also have AK-47s. In most cases however, they have targeted non-tribal persons,” Mehta told The Indian Express. While a field officer of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and a Bengali cloth trader were pulled down from an SUV and whisked away on September 24, in South Garo Hills district, nine passengers of a bus were abducted by a group of masked gunmen from North Garo Hills district on September 28. A day later an engineer from Jammu and Kashmir, working with a private construction company was also picked up in East Garo Hills region. There were unconfirmed reports that Vikash Kumar, an assistant central intelligence officer (ACIO) hailing from Bihar was already dead, while there has been no information about Waseem Ahmed, an engineer working with a Hyderabad-based firm engaged in road construction. “We still hope both are alive,” the DGP said. The police believe that Ahmed was abducted by a gang comprising former members of the Achik Matgrik Elite Force (AMEF), which has disintegrated into at least three factions. “It is difficult to tell off-hand the exact number (of persons kidnapped). Incidents have occurred in all the five districts in the Garo Hills region. While some of the victims have been rescued by the police, few others have managed to come out. Some incidents are also likely to have remain unreported, with families of such victims secretly negotiating to get the persons released,” DGP Mehta admitted. Local media in Shillong quoting a Home Ministry report last week, said at least 98 persons were abducted in Meghalaya between January and June 2015. An unofficial count on the other hand said that in September alone, at least 30 persons were taken hostage by different groups in the Garo Hills region. Local MP and former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A Sangma last week described the Garo Hills situation as very disturbing. “All I can say is that there is no government in Meghalaya,” Sangma, who has sent a letter to the Union Home Minister on the overall situation, said in Shillong. “While we are working on a new strategy to be employed soon, the good news is that the people have lynched a few such criminals they had caught and handed them over to the police along with at least half a dozen others who had gone to villages to extort money by abducting people,” DGP Mehta said.
