The governments of Assam and Meghalaya have decided to intensify cooperation in tackling insurgency.
At a press conference in Assam's administrative capital Dispur on Tuesday evening, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and his Meghalaya counterpart D D Lapang said in a statement: "We have decided to increase the ground-level coordination between our police forces and also sharing of information."
The two, who met for an hour, said they would ask the Centre to raise new battalions.
"Apart from asking for more forces for our immediate requirement, we will seek additional dedicated force for counterinsurgency," they said.
They also decided to convene a meeting of all chief ministers of the seven northeastern states. "The Assam chief minister has been requested to call this meeting in order to evolve a common strategy to tackle militancy in the region," Lapang said.
The Garo Hills of Meghalaya has become a hotbed of militancy of late. The Achik National Volunteers Council, a 10-year-old terrorist outfit, has teamed up with the Bhutan-based National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which mainly operates in Western Assam, to spread terror in the area.
Recent discovery of a large cache of arms in the Garo Hills and a spate of encounters between different militant groups and the security forces has convinced officials that the United Liberation Front of Asom and the NDFB are shifting base to Bangladesh.
On April 10, the West Garo Hills police recovered 96 rocket-propelled grenades, a large amount of RDX, arms and ammunition, and shot dead one militant in an encounter at Chisikgre village, under Phulbari Police Station.
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