Almost a month after the special investigation team on fuel adulteration had filed the charge sheet against 14 accused as a result of a raid led by Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) in June 2016, the same ACAUT team along with members of the Concerned Citizens of Nagaland(CCN) raided warehouses in Dimapur on December 9 allegedly used for siphoning and repacking rice meant for public distribution system.
The earlier SIT also came after agitations in the form of closures of the National Highways from the ACAUT led Coordination Committee on Fuel Adulteration (CCoFA) that was launched on October 17. On the second day of the agitation with already a melee being enacted between the volunteers and the police the CCoFA agreed to suspend their agitation based on the assurance by the government that the SIT report will be tabled within seven days. The case is still pending at the courts and judgement is awaited on the fate of the accused. This episode had somehow rattled the ruling government to some extent.
In the current raid and the sealing of the ware houses based on the FIR filed by the members of the ACAUT and the CCN took a twist when counter FIRs against the raids were filed by the owners of the warehouses for trespassing into their property. Consequently not only the manager/caretaker of the warehouses but also three members of ACAUT were arrested by the police and are currently under judicial custody. The arrested members of the ACAUT have not moved for bail but are now demanding unconditional release. Both the allegations of PDS rice scam and the legality of the raid will now be decided only by the courts.
ACAUT is supposed to be a mass based organisation and it is referred to by many in social media as a people’s movement and therefore the number of people it gathers in the next couple of days will decide the immediate results as well as the future of the organisation. Technically, it is not a registered organisation and it also somehow decided not to stay under the umbrella of the Naga Council Dimapur under whose aegis it initially started and so it suffers from legality to conduct its ‘raids’ unless led by competent authorities. Authorities can be in the form of government, quasi-government, any of the government recognised tribal organisations, or it can also be aggrieved parties. Therefore the merit of the case itself will be a big determinant of the legality of the ACAUT to conduct raids. The order by the 13 nearby colony councils against the warehouse might come in quite handy for ACAUT. Moreover, as mentioned in this column earlier during the raid on oil depots, such raids by the police or any competent authority requires good consistent independent witnesses to have a strong case.
However the move by the government and its machineries is one that reeks of high handedness and will only cause more damage in the long run. The state and its people are comparatively very new to the rest of the country in knowing and experiencing the nitty-gritties of the various prevalent laws and codes that govern them and the government cannot expect all to be legally conversant. A mass based movement may seem to have lost its earlier force but one wrong move by the government and it will have a domino effect due to the very unique and sensitive tribal setups and allegiances that the Nagas have. It will be costly for one and all so the government should fully support and expedite the investigation into the alleged scams and also make space for diplomacy to play a role.
