Ulfa hijacks rural telephony schemes in Assam

guwahati: alarm bells have been set ringing, after a recent discovery that rural telephony schemes in assam are increasingly being hijacked by militants operating in the state. in the trouble-torn lower assam district of goalpara, police recently clamped down and ensured disconnection of as many as six telephones - half of them in rural areas - after it was found that rebels were misusing these for nefarious activities."two of these were operated through the wireless in local loop (wll) system, while another one was a public telephone. all these areas were very remote. we had the phones disconnected, together with three other regular private telephone connections in small townships, which were also being used by extremists," goalpara superintendent of police, g m choudhury, said over telephone. telecom authorities, on condition of anonymity, explained that in accordance with the rural telephony scheme of the department, each revenue village in assam were being connected with telephones. "usually, the village panchayat secretary or the local block development officer recommends a person''s name, usually the village headman, in whose house the phone is kept. later, the village population has to pass a resolution seconding the proposal. only then is the phone issued." at times, though, the phones are also issued on the recommendation of members of parliament. the village public telephone (vpt) facility, in areas extremely remote and beyond the reach of normal telephones, was extended through the wll system, having a range of 20 km. choudhury informed that the rural phones in his district were mostly being used to issue threats, so that the individuals called, mostly businessmen, coughed up the money demanded in extortion notes served to them earlier. the district police chief said, "we noticed this trend over the last six months in the nalanga hills area, an isolated area bordering meghalaya. basically, the origin of the calls was spread across the goalpara, lakhipur and baguan police station areas of our district." interestingly, in one case, the phone was applied for and then issued in the name of a village headman, who was not even aware that a phone had been sanctioned for him. in another instance, the rebels - belonging to the banned united liberation front of asom (ulfa), had threatened the village headman and forced him to allow them to use the telephone. the police first detected this misuse of rural telephony schemes by using caller identification devices. "since there was no other way out, we requested the telecom authorities in bongaigaon to disconnect the phones", choudhury stated.