Much to the relief of insurgency-stricken North-Eastern region, the disturbed states like Nagaland and Manipur have recorded improved security situation according to highly-placed official sources. With the incidents of violence, killing of extremists and security personnel and arms loot remaining unabated in Tripura during the current year, relatively peaceful Meghalaya drastically marked deterioration of its law-and-order situation during the same period.

Significantly, in the most peaceful state of Mizoram, where there had been no incident of any violence in 1998, five security personnel and two civilians were killed during October 14, 1998 to October 13, this year, the sources said. Despite a marked overall decline in insurgency-related activities in the North East, in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh till October 13 last, in all 39 violent incidents took place against only 11 of the corresponding period of the last year. Of this, Meghalaya alone experienced 36 incidents followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram which experienced two and one incidents respectively, they said.

Similarly, the number of extremists killed in Meghalaya this year was 36 against last year's two, eight security personnel killed against four, eight civilians killed against two and 63 extremists arrested against only two. The sources pointed out that with Bangladesh and Bhutan governments taking stern measures against the exploitation of their lands by the insurgents from across the North-Eatern region, eyes of the ultras were now on Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

The sources preferred to attribute the rising insurgency and crime graph, particularly in Meghalaya, to the State's being used as corridor by the extremists of the region, more by the NSCN (I-M) and the ULFA.

Going by an official report, among four disturbed states like Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, the first two have considerably improved.