Heinous crime

After a brief lull, the law and order situation in Assam started deteriorating again with Guwahati city facing two major blasts within a span of a week, proving the intelligence inputs about the possibility of the situation deteriorating in the run up to the elections to be correct. At least six persons including a child were killed and more than 30 others received injuries when a powerful bomb exploded near the Maligaon bus stand in the city on April 6 and the incident once again highlighted the loopholes in the security arrangements. This was the second blast in the city within a week as the city faced another blast on March 31 barely hours before the Union External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee was scheduled to attend an election rally. Though the identity of the militant groups involved in the blasts is yet to be ascertained, the police suspects the involvement of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in the incidents as the police had inputs about entry of members of the militant groups in the city to trigger off explosions. Moreover, the explosions took place on the eve of the raising day of the ULFA, which also points the needle of suspicion towards the outfit. In fact, the police and security agencies recently received intelligence inputs about a game plan of the ULFA, Ranjan Daimary faction of the national Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) and Bangladesh based jehadi outfits to create disturbance in the State during the run up to the polls and the Government must tighten security arrangements all over Assam to ensure peaceful polls.

The Assam Government has sought additional forces from the Centre to deal with the situation before the polls. Though it is a fact that the Centre does not possess unlimited forces and the available forces need to be deployed all over the country, one hopes that the Centre will deploy extra forces in Assam to ensure violence free polls so that the people can exercise their franchise with an open mind. Moreover, it is time for the administration and police to formulate a clear-cut policy for parking of vehicles as there have been several instances of militants planting bombs in parking places in the busy localities. Knee jerk reaction of withdrawing parking places will not help matters and such actions only create problems for the citizens. The Government can think of creating notified parking places wherever required after a thorough survey and each and very vehicle entering those places should be checked. Of course, it may not be possible for the manpower-starved police force to deploy required personnel for the job and the Government can request the traders of the business localities to engage personnel from the private security agencies to carry out the job and the people who park the vehicles in such places will definitely not oppose the idea of paying nominal fees for parking vehicles in a secured place. After the serial blasts on October 30, there were talks of installing CCTV cameras in the parking places considered vulnerable but that has not yet been done for the reasons best known to the authorities concerned and reportedly, some such cameras were installed in the State secretariat. The Government must realise that augmenting security measures does not only mean providing security to the ministers and senior officers. ASSAM TRIBUNE