China will take advantage of North East situation, warns former Assam DGP

Former Director General of Police, Assam S M Srivastava has warned that unless the boundary disputes between India’s North-Eastern states are resolved, China will take advantage of the situation.

Srivastava told R Dutta Choudhury of The Assam Tribune that over the years, China has been trying to create disturbance in the North East states by way of assisting the militant groups with weapons and training. “Keeping the North East disturbed is a major goal of China. Disturbance in the region would definitely help China. That is why the Government should try its best to settle the border disputes between the states at the earliest,” he told the newspaper.

The former police officer said that the population pattern of the states in the  border areas has changed and that had added to the problems. He said that infiltrators from Bangladesh have settled in some of the border areas, leading to change in the demography of those areas. He stated that the infiltrators are available as cheap labour for the people on either side of the boundary. “The Central and State Governments will have to keep in mind the change of demography, while going for permanent settlement of the boundary disputes,” he added.

Srivastava expressed the view that the Central Government should also try its best to assimilate the people of the North East with the mainstream and take care of the needs of the people. Any enemy country will try to take advantage of a hostile population in lndia, he warned.

On the recent disturbances along the interstate borders, Srivastava said that the exchange of fire between the police forces of two states of a country is very unfortunate.

Srivastava appealed for serious efforts to settle the boundary disputes. Apart from being the DGP of Assam, Srivastava has also served in senior positions in Tripura and understands India’s border issues.