With the Dimasa extremists of North Cachar Hill district suspected to be behind recent abduction of the two top officials of Chandighat Tea Estate near, it is feared that the terrorist activities will be taking a new turn in this valley of South Assam, which is the already infested, with NSCN (IM) and PLA activities.

The incident of kidnapping of Hitesh Puri, general manager and Goutom Roy, manager of Chandighat Tea Estate, by Dimsa tribal dominated Dim Halam Daoga (DHD) militants, has rocked the planting community of Barak valley. After the incident the police have beefed up the security measure and Army has been deployed to help police in rescue operation.

The police and Tea Association of India (TAI) sources said that a group of extremists armed with sophisticated weapons first entered the bunglow of Gautom Roy. After looting the valuable ornaments and cash amounting to Rs. 66,000, they forced Mr. Roy to accompany them. Then they proceeded towards the bungalow of Hitesh Puri and abducted him too.

The extremist drove towards the neighbouring North Cachar Hill district. Though police, CRPF and Army have started manhunt for the planters, the fate of Mr. Puri and Mr. Roy is unknown till the time of filing this report. The Baak valley branch of the Tea Association of India (TAI) has expressed its deep concern over the incident. It's chairman T.R. Kothari and the branch secy. M.R. Ghatak have urged the SP Cachar as well as the inspector general of police, special branch, Assam, to take all necessary action in order to rescue the abducted persons.

TAI in a press release also said, that its Barak valley branch has always voiced for adequate arrangement of security for the protection of the tea garden executives, but the response from the authorities concerned was very poor. The culture of abuduction of tea officials by extremist groups in this valley was started long back in 1993 when Tilababu of Dilkush Tea Estate was kidnapped by suspected NSCN militants. That was immediately followed by the abuduction of two top officials of Dewan Tea Estate. On March 10 this year suspected Hmar extremist abuducted the manager of Lakhipur Tea Estate, R.K. Trivedy, and his colleague S.K. Shyam when they were supervising plantation works at its Tilka division. According to sources, DHD, which mainly operates from the North Cachar Hills district, has made inroads into the northern parts of neighbouring Cachar district.

The DHD may have had widen its ambit of extortion beyond of the North Cachar Hill as the underground outfit needs to hand over 70 per cent of its booty to its "big brother", the NSCN (IM), to incur the expenses for arms and training.

Surely, the latest development will make the task of the security personnel, engaged in the North-East, harder. Along with NSCN, ULFA, NDFB and others, now they would have to keep a strict vigil on DHD too.