JORHAT, April 26 - Taking stock of the problems of villagers of Merapani area near the Assam-Nagaland border in Golaghat district today, members of a Departmentally Related Standing Committee of the State Assembly said that extortion and encroachment by miscreants from Nagaland continue in those remote areas.
�We tried our best to understand the situation there. As the farmers refused to pay tax to certain groups of Nagaland, the miscreants destroyed the agricultural farms of Garbasti area of Merapani,� said MLA Majendra Narzary, who headed the committee of the State Assembly.
Along with Narzary, six other MLAs, including Ramendra N Kalita, Ashok Kumar Singhi, Dipak Kumar Rabha, Kamal Singh Narzary, Nijanur Rahman, Suman Haripriya and Ashok Sharma also visited Garbasti and a few other nearby areas today.
It may be mentioned here that two weeks ago an agricultural farm of areca-nut in that village was completely destroyed by the Naga miscreants and a villager was physically assaulted for not paying the �tax� to them.
Though the villagers sought help of the paramilitary security personnel, deployed there to maintain law and order as per Supreme Court order, the villagers did not get any positive response from them.
�It seems that the security personnel of CRPF played a biased role in Garbasti area. Villagers of the soil are yet to feel safe in those areas,� said Ramendra Narayan Kalita.
Kalita also said the Nagaland government had constructed a sluicegate in Assam�s land near the border, which caused a serious concern for the people of the State. �They set up an office of Deputy Director of Seed Farm on our soil. Ahead of that office, a sluicegate was also inaugurated by their people�s representative. It was constructed on our soil too,� said Kalita.
However, he said the State government has sanctioned the construction of a border outpost (BOP) in that sensitive area to maintain law and order.
The committee also sought many important official documents, like land records from the Golaghat Deputy Commissioner to prepare a comprehensive report on their findings which caused serious concern for the security for the people of the areas.
