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The Rediff Special/ Nitin Gogoi in Guwahati

Extortion is big business in the northeast

The Union home ministry's perception that insurgency in the northeast has become a "cottage industry," as articulated by its joint secretary GK Pillai in Shillong recently is not far from the truth.

Indeed, it is perhaps the first time that someone in government has identified and thought fit not to gloss over it. Over the years, the dozen-odd prominent insurgent groups in the northeast have perfected the process of extortion into a fine art. In fact, the huge amount of money collected by these groups forms the backbone of their existence.

The funds enable them to finance the visits of their leaders abroad, purchase sophisticated arms and communication equipment and run the organisation. Of course, most of them term the process as "tax collection." Take, for instance, the way the two factions of the all-powerful National Socialist Council of Nagaland function.

With the jurisdiction of the two factions clearly defined, the rate of payment by various categories of people is fixed in advance. A prominent leader of the NSCN (Khaplang faction) had told this correspondent last year that the organisation collects 25 per cent of annual salary from gazetted officers, 15 per cent from non-gazetted officials, and 10 per cent from grade III employees.

Government contractors have to pay in the region of between Rs 200,000 and Rs 300,000 annually while small businessmen have to cough up money to the tune of Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 per year. The system is so well defined that "tax" notices, very much on the lines of the ones issued by the income tax department, go out every year and receipts are issued once the payments are made. In neighbouring Manipur too, such a system exists.

Although in other insurgency-hit states like Assam and Tripura tax collection is not as clearly structured, extortion is indeed a big business.

Militants in Assam routinely collect ransom from tea companies located in their area of operation. Kidnapping is therefore rampant.

At the beginning of the 1990s when insurgency in Assam was at its peak, 4,083 people were kidnapped by various militant groups between 1991 and 1995.

Executives of tea companies, private firms and central government undertakings besides prominent businessmen were the main targets. Now, almost everyone, especially in the rural areas, has fallen into the "tax net." One estimate puts the amount of money annually collected by militants across the region at anything between Rs 100 million to Rs 120 million (Rs 10 crore to Rs 12 crore.)

If "tax collection" by militants is a big menace, demands for "donations" by overground pressure groups is a bigger headache for private firms and businessmen. Several student organisations, social clubs and those who profess to protect regional aspirations regularly besiege soft targets such as consumer goods companies and big business establishments for paid advertisements in souvenirs, sponsorships of obscure events and even for funding air tickets to distant destinations like Delhi and Calcutta.

Says one harassed executive, obviously not wishing to be named: "The demands from these organisations are a big nuisance. The underground elements are wary of visiting us, but leaders of these groups just barge into our offices every now and then, disrupting our functioning very often."

As a result, many big companies have refrained from opening branch or regional offices in the northeast. Even if some of them have establishments in the northeast, a conscious effort is made to keep as low a profile as possible. Clearly, publicity is the last thing on anybody's mind when it comes to operating in the region.

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