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India`s Assam to raise people`s army to combat insurgency

IRNA

Guwahati, Nov 10, IRNA -- The government in India`s northeastern state
of Assam Monday decided to raise a people`s army by providing 
villagers with weapons to combat separatist insurgency in the region, 
officials said. 
"We would soon be imparting arms training to villagers and equip 
them with weapons for combating militancy in the state," Assam chief 
minister Tarun Gogoi told journalists. 
The decision to equip villagers with weapons was spurred by an 
unprecedented incident Saturday where locals in western Assam lynched 
five militants using machetes and spears. 
Three civilians were also killed in the incident when the rebels 
lobbed hand grenades on the villagers who chased the five militants 
before lynching all of them. "It is a very heartening sign to hear 
reports of villagers taking on with armed rebels and hence our 
decision to utilize the services of the locals in fighting militancy 
along side our security forces," the chief minister said. 
"In the past, we found the villagers turning a blind eye and 
covertly supporting the militants. Things are changing and people are 
now fed up with violence and killings." 
The proposed arms training would be given to volunteers of the 
Village Defence Party (VDP), a community policing organization, formed
of locals in each of the villages in Assam. 
The VDP, however, has remained defunct over the years with the 
government rejecting demands from the locals to equip them with 
weapons to fight militancy. 
The government also decided to offer cash rewards to the villagers
who killed the five militants Saturday in an act yet unheard in the 
state. 
There are at least half-a-dozen rebel groups in Assam - the 
prominent among them are the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom 
(ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB). 
Both the ULFA and the NDFB, fighting for independent homelands in 
Assam are currently operating out of bases inside the adjoining 
Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan although reports now say the two groups 
are shifting camps to Bangladesh. 
Villagers in adjoining Meghalaya state have also been urging the 
federal government to equip them with weapons to stop armed 
Bangladeshi intruders from raiding their villages. 
/210 
End