Evolving developments in neighbouring Bangladesh have altered the security calculus in Meghalaya, with Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Tuesday cautioning that the shifting geopolitical landscape is reshaping the threat perception along the international border. “Having said that, we have to realise and remember that situation across the border in Bangladesh is not the same as it was last year. So obviously there’s a tendency and I don’t want to go too much details because it’s a matter of National Security, so I cannot talk too much in the details, but all I can say, is that different activities and different things across the border are also emerging which are changing the dynamics of the overall situation,” he stated.
The Chief Minister emphasised that while intelligence inputs about suspicious movements continue to pour in, verification often reveals them to be small-time criminal gangs or dacoit groups rather than structured militant outfits. “We have seen in the past, many years small activities, you know people coming together here and there, you only find out they are dacoit group. They are just people going small time, thieves of dacoit, therefore this kind of incidence and this kind of a trend is always coming up and down and we’re continuously monitoring this,” Sangma explained.
He maintained that insurgency-related activity in the state has followed cyclical trends, fluctuating like a graph, but denied any organised revival of militant groups. “You see activities, different activities at different times do happen in different areas and it’s like a graph that keeps going up and down. Now to say that that are regrouping is happening, no, we cannot conclude to that, absolutely not but are we getting intel about movements, yes, we are. Every time we get intel we try to find out what happening and then we find out that there were these two, three groups, they were more dacoits then the chapters closed out there,” he remarked.
Sangma, however, clarified that the state cannot afford to dismiss the possibility outright, particularly in view of the volatile situation across the border. “So this kind of activity here and there, keep coming to us, intel keeps coming to us on the basis of this intelligent information to conclude that there’s a regrouping, is not correct at all. But we are not closing the chapter also because it could be and I think DG was trying to say exactly that that we had been getting inputs of this thing and I guess the Press that time just took that first part and did not talk the whole picture,” he said.
He concluded by underlining the need for vigilance. “So, I’m giving you the whole picture, we get multiple intel’s every day, this multiple intels have to be verified, till we don’t verify it, we cannot conclude and say that it is really grouping but is there information coming in, yes information, comes every day. Now situation has become more critical because of the situation in Bangladesh and therefore those situations are something that we have to continuously in monitor. So that’s the situation right now.”
