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Troops to guard tracks
Army personnel to patrol Silchar-Lumding project |
| OUR CORRESPONDENT TELEGRAPH INDIA |
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Silchar, Feb. 11: Army personnel may soon
be guarding the Silchar-Lumding track to keep
militants from disrupting work on the gauge
conversion project.
The metre gauge track in
the hill section is being upgraded to broad
gauge.
Union heavy industries minister and Congress MP in
the Lok Sabha Sontosh Mohan Dev, said yesterday a
decision in this regard may be taken at a meeting
in
New Delhi next month.
Senior officials from the defence, railway and
home ministries are likely to attend the meeting.
The “vulnerable” 201-km railway track has been a
favourite target of Dimasa militants, who
routinely attack and abduct workers at the project
site. They also run an extortion racket in the
area.
The Gorlosa faction of the Dima Halam Daogah
killed 11 railway personnel and contractors
engaged in gauge conversion work in 2006.
In January this year, it attacked the Umrangsu
power production unit, killing five persons.
The Kuki National Front and the National Socialist
Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) are also active
in the area.
Dispur had recently criticised the army for
failing to tackle terror in
the hill districts, which had affected
gauge conversion and the East West Corridor
projects.
It had also demanded that the hill districts be
brought under the control of 4 Corps rather than
remain under the army’s 3 Corps.
The most vulnerable stretch for the rail project
is between Chandranathpur in Cachar and Maibong in
North Cachar Hills district, where work has been
progressing at a snail’s pace since 1998.
The tardy progress has been responsible for the
project cost shooting up from Rs 648 crore to Rs
1,500 crore.
The rail scheme was also was granted the status of
a national project recently. The state government
has already decided to engage 2,000 ex-servicemen
for security of the projects in the districts.
“There are reasons to believe that deployment
proposals will be cleared. The public criticism of
the army, too, needs to be negated by deploying an
adequate number of personnel there,” a source
said.
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