By IANS
New Delhi : There has been no improvement in the security situation in the northeastern states, but there has been no deterioration either since our coalition government came to power, said minister of state for home here Friday.
“I agree that there has been no let up in terrorism and law and order situation in the northeast since 2004 when we came to power. But violence has not escalated either,” Sri Prakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home, told reporters.
“In the northeast, the situation is such that fights between ethnic groups occur in an unpredictable manner. In this scenario, three years are not enough for a government to tackle the problem,” he said in an attempt to justify the track record of the Union government.
“In fact, there has been some improvement in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and – I am proud to say – even in a state like Tripura,” Jaiswal added.
Home ministry officials said their data shows worsening of situation in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, which has been in power since 2004.
Poll dates for the three northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland have already been announced and will be held Feb 23, March 3 and March 5 respectively.
The opposition parties have already made rising terrorism and poor law and order situation in these states one of the issues in the election.
Figures released by the home ministry show 1,404 incidents of violence in 2007 in the seven north-eastern states. This is higher than the 1,332 cases reported in 2003.
Even the number of extremists killed in the region has fallen from 523 in 2003 to 480 in 2007. “Fewer extremists were gunned down and the number of extremists active in the region has come down,” Jaiswal said.
However, the number of both the security forces and civilians killed in northeastern states has come down since 2003.
Jaiswal said law and order and policing were state subjects and there was little that the union government could do on the issue. “We can send paramilitary forces whenever a state demands, allow use of helicopters for operations and share vital information, but ultimately the state government has to fight,” he clarified.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime minister-in-waiting, Lal Krishna Advani is wrong in saying that the UPA government is synonymous with terrorism. Though there is no improvement in the northeast, terror activities have gone down in Jammu and Kashmir and even Naxalism is under control,” he said.