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PM to meet North-East CMs

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will soon convene a meeting of the chief ministers of North-Eastern states where all problems relating to insurgency and development of the region will be discussed, Union Home Minister Lal Kishinchand Advani told the Rajya Sabha yesterday.

Responding to members who sought clarifications on his statement regarding the killing of Tripura Minister Bimal Sinha, Advani said insurgents in the North-East had links with their counterparts in neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan.

The home minister said the Centre had withdrawn 25 companies of paramilitary forces from Tripura during the recent election. ''There were 66 companies in the state and 25 of them were withdrawn during the election. I have issued instructions that security should be restored to what it was before the election,'' he added.

Assuring the Centre's full assistance to the state in tackling insurgency, Advani said every effort would have to be made to see the evil of insurgency was uprooted.

The Centre, he said, had enacted the National Security Act to deal with insurgency in various parts of the country. But the Tripura government's view was that using the NSA would mean violating civil liberties. Advani was of the view that, if there was any justification for using the NSA, it was to deal with situations like this.

The home minister said the insurgents in the country were getting arms and weapons from the neighbouring countries. Some of these countries were giving them arms on the condition that they would continue creating trouble in India, he said.

On the killing of the Tripura minister, Advani said Sinha did not inform the central paramilitary forces that he was going to meet the insurgents. Sinha walked into the trap laid for him by the extremists, he added.

Seeking clarifications on the home minister's statement on the Tripura incident, members said security forces in the region have been ill-equipped in the face of the insurgents's sophisticated weaponry.

They felt the problems of the entire North-East have been ignored by successive central governments. Many of them held the Centre responsible for the present situation as large areas, on being declared disturbed areas, have been under the charge of central forces in the matter of law and order.

UNI

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