Guwahati: EVEN AS peace talks continue with various outfits from northeast India, oil and gas companies operating in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland are receiving extortion notes from banned outfits.
The Oil India Limited (OIL), with its field headquarters in upper Assam’s Duliajan recently received an extortion note from the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac –Muivah) or NSCN-IM, demanding crores of rupees.
“The note was sent recently to our site office near Manabhum reserve forest in Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district.” confirmed a senior OIL official from Dulaijan who did not wanted to be identified.
OIL immediately reported the incident to the Assam and Arunachal governments. OIL officials are tightlipped about the incident and do not want to disclose the amount demanded by NSCN-IM. The company has received similar extortion notes earlier also. But sources within OIL confirmed that this time figure is huge.
Meanwhile, the Arunachal government has sprung into action. It has deployed extra forces from the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) along with Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) troopers, who guard the exploration site of OIL in Manabhum. The reserve forest is a strategic location, where exploration was supposed to take place, is often used by insurgents to slip into their bases in neighbouring Myanmar.
Earlier, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) had to suspend operations in the region on several occasions owing to threats from various banned outfits, including NCSN-IM, NSCN-K and Ulfa.
“There are huge oil and gas reserves in Arunachal Pradesh,” a senior ONGC exploration expert based in Nazira, Assam, said. “But the volatile situation has to be dealt with. All oil majors will have to increase exploration in northeast as the price of crude oil is ever increasing in the international market and the nation needs oil.”
Ratnadip Choudhury is a Principal Correspondent with Tehelka
ratnadip@tehelka.com