“Kidnappers Kind, Terrain Harsh”

Mumbai, Aug 4 : The terrain was difficult. The kidnappers were kind. With two fractured toes and an injured leg, Vilas Bardekar, senior forest officer of Maharashtra cadre, made his way through endless rivers, streams, waterfalls, valleys, fields and jungles.

Mr. Bardekar was released on Sunday from the captivity of suspected cadres of insurgent National Democratic Front of Boroland (Ranjan Daimary faction) who abducted him 83 days ago.


Freedom at last: Vilas Bardekar, senior forest officer, who was released in Assam on Sunday by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland after a two-and-half-month ordeal. He is coming out of Mantralaya after meeting the Forest Minister. Photo: Vivek Bendre

Speaking to journalists here on Tuesday, Mr. Bardekar said the cadres never placed any demands before him. “They said they wanted a Boroland, but were not clear if they wanted a separate State or country. They were full of spite for the Assam government, whom they accused on several injustices.”

“They were young boys between 19 and 26 years. They were well-behaved and took good care of me. [Occasionally,] they checked if I had fever.

On one occasion, two of them even saved my life when I had lost my balance trying to cross a surging river.

The slopes were steep, there were leeches and the mud was sticky. They held onto me and never let go. That's when I felt, those who can save my life can never kill me.

I was hopeful of a release. An apprehension of approaching military forces would keep us on the move. We did not take the same road twice,” he recalled.

Around six to 12 persons accompanied Mr. Bardekar as they went from camp to camp, which was headed by one leader.

Mr. Bardekar was in Assam's Deomara village to do research on butterflies when he was abducted. “Around 8 p.m., I and my guide were looking at some pictures of butterflies when all of a sudden a bunch of people came and dragged away my guide. They asked, ‘Are you going to write about this village?'”

Then, Mr. Bardekar felt a blow of an AK-56 rifle land on his leg. “I thought there was a misunderstanding. They left the guide and took me. We crossed rivers and fields and reached a jungle. I could not walk and I had hurt both me legs. They administered an injection,” the officer said. The captors had mistaken him for a journalist.

Mr. Bardekar's release came as unexpectedly as his capture. “They never spoke to me before the release. The day before, they said, ‘Tomorrow you have to go [downstream].' They left me at Batasipur railway station and told me to get going.”

During the period when Mr. Bardekar was in captivity, Sudhakar Suradkar, his relative and a retired IPS officer, was coordinating with various agencies for his release. While Mr. Suradkar categorically denied that any ransom was paid, he refused to throw light upon the grounds for release “in the interest of national security.”

Mr. Bardekar's abduction came when the monsoon session of the State Assembly was going on. The Opposition had alleged that a ransom was being demanded from the officer's family.

“This is a sensitive issue. The State's stand was clear that no ransom would be paid lest it sets a trend. Various agencies all over the country – the CID, IB, and the local police in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh – were coordinating on the issue.

We had public sympathy. Students in Assam went on a strike demanding his release. Various representations were made to the government. The intention was to get him back safely.

Pressure was built up consistently through negotiations. They felt by keeping Mr. Bardekar, their lives would be at stake. A military [crackdown] was not a good idea. All the State governments involved have done all they could.”

On his part, Mr. Bardekar too challenged the “insurgents.” “I asked them if they were doing anything courageous by kidnapping me. But they never answered,” he said. On Tuesday, Mr. Bardekar met Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who, he said, expressed relief on his safe return.

Asked if he would be penning his experiences, Mr. Bardekar said he had been keeping a daily record of his travails; thanks to a request for pen and paper which his captors granted.

Aimol: A Tribal Dialect in Manipur Included in World Extinct Languages

Imphal, Aug 4 : Some languages presently speaking by scheduled tribes and scheduled caste people in the state of Manipur have been included among the languages as vanished in the World of Endangered Languages (2009) vis-à-vis Census of the UNESCO.

In order to proof that the languages are still speaking by the tribes and castes as their mother tongues, documentations have also been started a team of Centre for Tribal Endanger Language, CIIL led by its chief research person Dr Th Chandramani, an official source said.

The documentation works began from today from the dialect of Aimol tribe which has been included among the list of the extinct languages.

The team went to the Aimol Khullen where Aimol tribes settle at large number.

During the visit at the village, the team leader categorically explained the reason behind their visit to the chiefs of villages and villagers and about the report submitted to the UNESCO wrongly by some vested interest persons.

When the documents to proof the inclusion of the language in the list of extinct languages, president of the Aimol Tribe Union Athoi Bongte said the tribe is settling extending in as many as 15 villages of three districts of the state.

Out of the 15 villages, 11 are in Chandel district, two each in Churachandpur and Senapati district.

They are speaking the Aimol dialect, he said expressing dissatisfied over the inclusion of the language among the vanished language of the world.

The act of the some vested interest persons is amount to discriminating the tribe which is settling in Manipur and Assam.

Even in Manipur the population of the tribe is over 8000, he revealed expressing unhappy while informing that two small villages at the tribe in Assam merging to Hmar tribe.

Interestingly the language which has been listed as extinct one is currently broadcasting in the AIR Imphal's Chinglongi Seirol, a special programme of different tribes in the state.

Besides this, a researcher of the Manipur University, Dr M Samugou has published a book of the language "Description Grammar of Aimol".

The Aimol Baptist Association in association with Manipur Baptist Convention is putting efforts to publish an Aimol version of the New Testament of the Bible.

These living examples have showed that the language still exists and the report submitted to the UNESCO is wronged.

Chairman of the Literary Society of Aimol SL Warte said that on hearing the report of the UNESCO, he feel surprise and shock.

It would have been the handy works of vested interest person or who lack knowledge of the indigenous people of the region.

He further said that Aimol is a tribe settling in the state of Manipur as early as 16 AD.

It has been very clear by the folk song of Manipur existing since the period of King Paikhomba.
They started settling in the present state of Assam after 17 AD, he claimed adding their there were hard evidence to prove it.

Leaders of the Aimol tribe also expressed hope that with the visiting team will do at its best to prove that the language is existed and speaking by the tribe.

Dr Th Chandramani talking to reporters said he has some Aimol friends.

They are still speaking the dialect and he and his team will documented to prove that the language is not vanished.

via Hueiyen News Service

Where Do 'Chinese' Guns Arming Rebels Really Come From?

By Subir Bhaumik

Northeast India is awash with arms (Pic: Subhamoy Bhattacharjee)

South Asia's illegal arms market is full of "Chinese-made weapons" - but many of them may not actually be made in China.

Anti-arms campaigners say that the rifles and machine guns which South Asia's rebel armies buy are manufactured under "an informal franchise" that Burma's rebel United Wa State Army (UWSA) has managed to secure from Chinese ordnance factories.

The UWSA is an ethnic left-wing rebel militia, with an estimated 30,000 fighters. It is accused of being involved in arms dealing and drug trafficking.

It enjoys very close relations with China because most of its leaders, being former Communist guerrillas, were trained in China in the 1960s and 1970s.

Matters have recently become more tense because the UWSA's ceasefire with the Burmese military government is in danger of falling apart.

The UWSA is unhappy over the government's drive to get all ethnic militias to join a military-sponsored Border Guard Force.

None of this seems to bother unscrupulous and unofficial Chinese arms dealers who carry on supplying weapons, despite the possibility of more armed conflict.

"The Chinese factories are desperate for profits and they have not cared who the weapons are reaching. Now they are outsourcing [their know-how]," says Binalaxmi Nephram, an award-winning campaigner against small arms proliferation.

At the same time the UWSA has started producing Chinese-made weapons under an "informal franchise" after allegedly making a huge annual payment to factories in China to use their designs and obtain production-level support.

Major player

The area is home to numerous rebel groups all requiring arms

Sources in the illegal arms trade say that the last big consignment of genuine Chinese weapons to enter South Asia was the one that was seized by Bangladesh police at the port city of Chittagong in April 2004.

Confessions made by a Bangladesh arms dealer, Hafizur Rehman, in a Chittagong court indicated this consignment was being imported from Hong Kong by the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), a major separatist group in India's troubled north-east.

Rehman said he worked the deal after being paid a hefty advance by Ulfa's military chief, Paresh Barua.

But Mr Barua was not importing this huge consignment for his group alone, say officials.

Over the past 10 to 12 years, Ulfa has emerged as a major player in the illegal arms trade in South Asia.

Buying "Chinese arms" where they are cheapest, the group would then sell them on at a profit to bulk buyers such as Maoist rebels in India and Nepal, it is alleged.

In the process, Ulfa paid for its own arms imports and also built up huge bank balances to finance its separatist campaign.

When Bangladesh's new government cracked down on Ulfa last year and detained almost their entire top leadership nearly $1bn (£0.6bn) was seized from more than 40 bank accounts operated by the group.

Bangladeshi and Indian intelligence officials say that, while a part of these funds was secured through extortion and trading activity, the bulk of it came from the illegal arms trade.

They told the BBC that after the 2004 Chittagong port seizure, Ulfa turned to a new source of Chinese weapons, the United Wa State Army.

Two senior Ulfa rebel leaders, on condition of anonymity, corroborated the intelligence claims.

They said that the weapons manufactured by the Wa rebels were "initially inferior" to those made in China, but within a few months the "production defects were sorted out".

"What we now buy from the Was are a perfect copy of the original Chinese weapons. And they are much cheaper and are also handed over to us at convenient locations near the Indian border," said a leader.

Gaganjit Singh, a former deputy chief of India's Defence Intelligence Agency, said: "Thousands of rifles, machine-guns, pistols and revolvers, grenades and much else went to the Indian Maoists - and before that to the Nepali Maoists - and the jihadi groups of Bangladesh and the separatist armies of north-east India through this conduit."

Hotel meetings

Chittagong has emerged as the hub of the trade, say officials.

Many of the weapons are believed to have originated from China (Pic: Subhamoy Bhattacharjee)

The arms dealers and rebel leaders were spending so much time in Chittagong hotels that Ulfa eventually bought a number of city properties for their meetings.

Senior Bangladeshi officials in the city told the BBC that once Ulfa had the consignments delivered to them, they would use a network of Bangladeshi arms dealers to settle deals with buyers in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

"The consignment would then be split into small, well-concealed packages and carted off to their destinations," admitted one Bangladesh arms dealer on condition of anonymity.

The conduit fell apart when the Bangladesh government started their crackdown against the Ulfa and other Indian rebel groups.

That has made the principal suppliers, the United Wa State Army, rather desperate.

A representative of the group even contacted me seeking "direct contacts" with India's Maoists.

Indian intelligence is not able to confirm whether the Was have been successful in making "direct contact" with the Indian Maoists.

"But they will keep trying, because they have to sell their increasing stocks of weapons," says Gaganjit Singh.

"And who better than the expanding army of Indian Maoists to pick them up?"

via BBC News

Northeast Fit to be Organic Cultivation Hub

New Delhi, Aug 3 : With rich natural resources, biodiversity, dependable rainfall (annual average close to 2000 mm) and lower use of pesticides, north eastern states of the country could become a hub for organic products cultivation, the demand for which is up in global markets, an independent research paper has said.

The paper has also urged the central government and the North Eastern Development Council to create an umbrella policy so that the potential of organic products could be harnessed. "With proper post-harvest technology, the region has all the potential to become a producer of tea, coffee, aromatic rice, medicinal plants and horticulture products," BC Barah, principal scientist at the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP) observed in the paper.

"Low use of chemical inputs in the north eastern regions should be converted into an opportunity by promoting organic products for which demand is fast rising in domestic as well international market," Barah told FE.

The paper — Agricultural Development in North-East India: challenges and opportunities — said states are rich on human capital and with right kind of market linkage strategy, the potential for increasing agricultural income would be enhanced significantly.

"The existing institutional credit system is severely hampered in the area due to certain institutional problems and a strategy should be evolved to promote community based collaterals for effective credit delivery," the paper noted.

It said that the geo-physical conditions limit horizontal expansion of cultivable land in the north eastern states because of which the percentage of cultivable area to the total geographical areas ranges from 2.2% (in hilly state like Arunachal Pradesh) to 35.4% (in Assam), as compared to 43.3% as the national average.

Combinations of food crops with livestock, fishery, piggery, forestry and horticulture are have been suggested for Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, where the cultivable land is less than 10% of the geographical areas. "The hilly terrains and slopes of these states may be used for plantation crops such as fruits, rubber and forestry, flower and livestock to supplement food production and income generations," the paper noted.

For north eastern states and hilly areas, the government has launched a centrally sponsored scheme on integrated development of horticulture in the north eastern states in 2001-02 which was extended to Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in 2003-04. The scheme has been renamed Horticulture Mission for North-East and Himalayan States with effect from 2010-11, which provides higher subsidy than what is available under National Horticulture Mission (NHM) in plane areas.

In order to make seeds timely available at affordable prices to the farmers of hilly or remote areas of north eastern states, including Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and hilly areas of West Bengal, the scheme of transport subsidy on movement of seeds is in operation.

Economic Census to Begin in Mizoram

Aizawl, Aug 3 : Preliminary survey for the sixth nation-wide Economic Census would begin from this month in all eight districts of Mizoram, an official statement said here today.

The Economic Census 2011 would be conducted during June to October next year and the data and findings of the sample survey were expected to come in handy for the coming Economic Census exercise, the statement said.

At a function here Prof S P Mukherjee, Chairman of the Working Group pointed out that the economic census had become indispensable for formulating plans by different departments.

Illegal Migrants Into Ganja Cultivation in Northeast India

Shillong, Aug 3 : Terming smuggling of ganja as an ‘alarming problem’ in the Northeast, a top customs official today said most of the ganja cultivation in the region was being done by illegal migrants.

We destroyed over 50 bighas of illicit opium cultivation in Assam last year and in most cases it was found that the cultivators were of suspected nationality.

Most of the ganja is grown in the unkempt riverine belts, North East Commissioner of Customs (Preventive) S R Baruah said. He said the cultivators even use power-tillers, fertilizers and irrigation facilities, resulting in high yielding bushes.

The illegal migrants, mostly from Bangladesh, cultivate it on contract basis for the smugglers. The profit margin for the cultivators is about Rs 300 per kg, Baruah told PTI.

He said Guwahati had become a transit route for the movement of the illegal ganja from Northeast to other parts of the country particularly the eastern and northern parts.

Customs had on Saturday seized a truck-load of ganja (1800 kg) worth Rs one crore at Nongpoh in Meghalaya.

The ganja came from Manipur, though it was loaded in Dimapur in Nagaland, and was bound for Guwahati from where, Customs officials said, it would be taken outside the region.

Even in Manipur, Baruah said, the cultivation of Opium was being done by suspected nationals. The smugglers keep on changing the routes.

Some take the Manipur-Dimapur-Numaligarh route and some pass it through Silchar-Shillong etc. They also use different goods as camouflage.

In Saturday’s case, the ganja was concealed under five tonnes of scrap items.'' ''It is seen that more than one truck is used to ferry the ganja out of the region and the off-loading and reloading is done generally in Guwahati, Baruah said.

The smugglers also often use train to ferry the ganja. During the first quarter of this financial year, the customs has seized contraband goods valued at Rs 15.63 crore in the region.

How an Injured CRPF Man Saved Lives in Assam

By Kishalay Bhattacharjee

Guwahati, Aug 3 : Heroes are born in moments of adversity. JB Srinivasan is a CRPF bus driver who was just doing his job. Then, militants struck.

On Friday morning last week, Srinivasan was driving CRPF personnel from Agiah to Goalpara in Assam, when his bus ran over a landmine, killing five people.

The casualties could have been far higher had Srinivasan not reacted immediately, driving the damaged bus straight to a hospital some distance away.

The driver himself had shrapnel injuries, but he did not stop, and saved many lives that day. Thirty-three CRPF personnel who were on the bus are now undergoing treatment at a Guwahati hospital. One of them is in critical. condition.

J B Srinivasanin says, "Suddenly the blast took place and the vehicle shook up. I realized what happened and seeing my colleagues injured I just drove straight to the hospital and ensured that they were given first aid"

Srinivasan's battalion has been training in counter-insurgency operations in Goalpara for deployment in Maoist areas.

Indian Bike Engines Smuggled to Run Bangla Boats

By E.M. Jose

Shillong, Aug 3 : Smuggling of jazzy bikes to Bangladesh from Meghalaya has become a lucrative business for a gang operating along the border the hill state shares with the neighboring country.

The border, earlier used for carrying contraband, is now also used to smuggle Pulsar, Bajaj 100cc and Yamaha RX 100 to Bangladesh where the engines of the bikes are removed to ply motorboats.

India does not export bikes to Bangladesh which imports the two-wheelers from Japan and North Korea. Earlier, bikes from the northeastern states, except Assam and Bangladesh, were smuggled to Myanmar to make motorboats.

Incidents of theft of at least 50 bikes till July this year from the border areas of Meghalaya have lent credence to the suspicion that there is a thriving nexus between the border criminals in Meghalaya and those in Bangladesh who are engaged in smuggling of bikes.

“We had arrested a few Bangladeshi bike-lifters a few months back and their confessions revealed that the bikes’ engines are used in the mechanised boats,” the superintendent of police, West Garo Hills, Dalton Marak, said.

The arrests of two Bangladeshi nationals — Santa Koch, alias Sarna, 32, and Kanchan Koch, 22 — in May this year have blown the lid off a thriving bike-smuggling racket.

Mahendraganj police with the help of the residents of Chibong Bongre village in West Garo Hills district apprehended the duo at Chibong Bongre village. The bike (registration number ML-09-7718) seized was stolen by them from Haldibari village in West Garo Hills border.

Their confessions revealed that engines removed from the bikes are used to make motorboats in Bangladesh. Confirming this, the BSF and Meghalaya police said the engines with good mileage come handy for making motorboats.

A manager of a bike showroom here said engines of Pulsar can be easily fixed to motorboats. According to the police, engines of Pulsar consume less petrol.

The criminals from Meghalaya border earn more than Rs 10,000 per motorcycle engine, according to the police.

The BSF had foiled attempts to smuggle bikes to Bangladesh on six occasions this year.

On April 27, the BSF deployed in Garo hills had spotted two persons pushing a bike towards the Bangladesh side from Dalu in West Garo Hills.

The smugglers, however, escaped, leaving behind the motorcycle.

The public relations officer of the BSF, Ravi Gandhi, also confirmed reports of bike engines being used in the motorboats in Bangladesh.

According to the BSF, most of the bikes intercepted were stolen from Tura and nearby areas.

“It appears that there is an organized gang of vehicle-lifters in West Garo Hills that has access to Bangladesh,” the BSF said.

West Khasi Hills, bordering Bangladesh, has also become a safe haven for bike smugglers.

“We had busted a racket in West Khasi Hills border. The gang comprised Garos from Bangladesh. They were also engaged in stealing bikes among other crimes,” West Khasi Hills superintendent of police, M. Kharkrang, said.

A gang led by one Kala Mia was busted in Borosora, West Khasi Hills, on July 6.

The criminals steal the bikes from the hilly areas of the district and drive down to the Bangladesh border to sell them , the SP said.

Once the bikes reach Bangladesh, there are operatives and mechanics who remove the engines for use in the motorboats.

Concerned over the rise in incidents of bike theft, Meghalaya police want the bike owners to keep the two-wheelers in safe custody.