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Tea planters to raise private force for self-defence

Tea planters in the Dooars in North Bengal are planning to raise a private protection force on the lines of the one in Assam to protect them from militant attacks.

The insurgent groups from the north-east like the United Liberation Front for Asom, or ULFA, and the Kamtapuri Liberation Organisation, or KLO, in Dooars tea belt have shaken the planters.

The planters maintained that the law and order situation had been deteriorating fast in the region having more than 275 established tea gardens.

Loot of garden remittance in broad-day light on the National Highway 31 passing through the heart of the tea belt, abductions, demand of huge ransom, theft of gardens' property like green tea leaves, costly irrigation implements and even fence wiring have become a routine matter, they say.

The Kamtapuri activists, spearheading a movement for a separate state in North Bengal, are in league with the ULFA militants, the planters claim.

The Kamtapuris, in exchange of arms and money, provide shelter to the ULFA, operating from camps situated in the jungles on the Bhutanese side, hardly 15-20 km north of Central Dooars.

The first reported ULFA-Kamtapuri armed operation was the kidnapping of tea garden owner Roshan Lal Garg from his Latabari tea estate in Central Dooars in July 1999.

It was the first time that militants in North Bengal used sophisticated arms like AK-47s.

Two Kamtapuri leaders were arrested in this connection after Garg's release. Garg's family had to pay a huge ransom to secure his release in February this year.

D N Gupta, secretary of the Tea Association of India, or TAI, north Bengal branch, said that the law and order situation in the Dooars tea belt had deteriorated remarkably. If the militant activities were not checked at this juncture, it would go out of hand, he warned.

TAI has 60 tea garden owners as members in the Dooars and the Terai region of the Himalaya foothills, spread over the three North Bengal tea districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar.

It had instructed its members to avoid travelling after nightfall and also make heavy security arrangements to accompany garden remittance and workers' pay vehicles.

Gupta said, ''We are negotiating with a private security agency, manned by senior retired police and army personnel, to form the special security force for members. We have urged the district administration to make sufficient security measures to curb militancy at this stage."

Though several members have been receiving extortion demands, they were reluctant to inform the association fearing retaliation by these organisations.

The TAI secretary said the industry had approached the state government and the district administration to keep constant vigil and intensify police patrolling of the National Highway 31 and set up new police stations or outposts of existing ones.

''We have also requested the authorities to equip the security forces with modern arms, vehicles and communication systems to meet the ultras challenge."

UNI

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