Kidnapping for ransom shakes tea industry

SILCHAR, August 23: After milking the tea industry of Brahmaputra valley for years, the insurgents have now extended their tentacles to the Surama Valley causing serious panic among the planters here. Incidences of kidnappings, alleged inaction of the district authorities and withdrawal of the Army have shaken the roots of the local tea industry and triggered a major crisis even as its production went down due to bad weather as well as law and order problem. The Surama Valley branch of the Indian Tea Association sent an SOS to the Assam chief minister, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, for his urgent intervention after one more tea garden manager was kidnapped by militants on Saturday. According to industry sources, most of the tea gardens located along the border with Manipur, Mizoram, North Cachar Hills district and Tripura besides Bangladesh have been affected and the tea estate officials are on the verge of fleeing as National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN)-backed militants are continuously harassing them demanding money and abducting people at their will. Only yesterday Patimara tea estate manager Rajat Banerjee was kidnapped by NSCN-backed militants from his garden. A fortnight ago about ten extremists dressed in Army fatigues abducted Gautam Roy, manager of Chandighat tea estate along with company general manager H Puri. The release of both the officials were secured by paying a huge amount of ransom, a fact the industry people deny, at least officially. On August 4, assistant manager of Baladhan division of Burthol tea estate (Dewan group of tea estates), J Sharma was abducted and returned for a ransom. According to police, the NSCN cadres of Manipur and Nagaland, which became idle following the ceasefire have returned to action in the region, and are finding abduction as a new and easy way of milking money from the industry. The Cachar superintendent of police, Mukesh Agarwala, admitted that these militants have territorial advantage. "Since the area is vast and the terrain hostile, we are unable to plug lots of holes," he said, adding that most of these militants were basically criminals who want to extract money. The tea industry sources informed that the withdrawal of the Army from Jiribam on the Assam-Manipur border has further compounded the problem as the NSCN has got literally an open field to spread terror in the tea belt. "Earlier, we could call them directly but not now the district administration is not at all equipped to handle a problem of such magnitude," said an industry source requesting anonymity. "Keeping in mind the forthcoming Lok Sabha election, we are apprehensive that the situation may get even worse," said the source. The valley has about 40 gardens, all large ones. The big companies which have gardens included Goodricke, Jardins and Octivius Steel.