GUWAHATI, MAY 25 : The Northeast Frontier Railways has resumed railway services on the Lumding-Silchar hill section on Sunday after it had withdrawn them on May 12 following a series of attacks by the Black Widow militant outfit in the preceding week. However, although the Assam Government gave an assurance of “adequate security arrangements,” contractors engaged by the railways to construct a new 201-km broad gauge to replace the existing metre gauge line have refused to go back to work. “The situation is very dangerous. While the militants and security forces fight between themselves, we always become soft targets,” said Shankar Das, general secretary of the NF Railway Contractors’ Association.
Altogether 16 contractor firms—which have about 5,000 employees between them—engaged by the railways for the Lumding-Silchar BG project had stopped work after eleven of their employees were gunned down by Black Widow militants in the North Cachar Hills district on May 11. Das said that while the project began in 1997 with an initial target fixed for 2005, militant groups have gunned down at least 50 workers. “The militants have been demanding money from us since day one. While it is a fact that some of us had to pay money in order to secure the release of some of our kidnapped employees, several persons have still remained untraced,” he said.
Indicating that the Assam Government has not done a satisfactory job of ensuring security, Das said things were much better—despite more serious militant threats—in the Kumarghat-Agartala project in Tripura. “Every time there was a problem, Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar would immediately ensure that foolproof security was provided to us,” he said.
Echoing Das’s views, Ananda Ram Raitani, president of the Contractors’ Association said neither the NF Railways nor the Assam Government have been able to provide or assure any kind of reliable security. “We have invested huge sums of money apart from renting various heavy and costly pieces of equipment, which are now all lying in the sites without any security. We can’t do anything if these are damaged or stolen by militants and miscreants,” Raitani added.
