Guwahati, Oct 4 : Illegal firearms being channeled into the North East are going to emerge as a major concern in maintaining law and order in a region already infested by dozens of insurgent and subversive groups.
The problem is aggravating with some weapons being sold off to criminal gangs, which are operating well below the radar of the police and the Army.
Apart from pistols and revolvers, semi-automatic weapons with considerable fire power are being brought into the region. At times American and European weapons have also been recovered from insurgents, which reveals the demand for high-quality firearms.
Well placed sources in intelligence are of the view that the police of the NE States must join hands to monitor the flow of firearms, and draw up a viable strategy to stop the inflow if they are serious about curbing crimes.
“Firearms are being brought in by several insurgent outfits on their own, or by middlemen who have contacts in Myanmar and China. Some of these are sophisticated pieces commanding good prices. These already pose a grave risk to innocent people of the region,” a senior intelligence operative said.
While acknowledging the reach of local insurgent groups to arms dealers, he emphasized that there might be a bigger game plan of foreign forces to arm the groups with lethal weaponry. Destabilizing the region by creating a fear psychosis becomes much easier if insurgents can be heavily armed, he added.
The PLA of China is in the midst of a modernization program, and some of its weaponry is likely to be disposed of, which has added another dimension to the problem.
The threat from illegal firearms is not confined to the region, as some of those can be ferried to other parts of the country. Although, it is yet to be fully corroborated, there are reports that some consignments of illegal firearms brought from across the border into the North East have found their way to the neighboring States.
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