About 80,000 personnel of Indian Army and Central Paramilitary Forces are said to have been deployed in India’s Northeast State of Manipur having an esitmated 3.64 million population since the eruption of violent conflict between the Kuki-Zomi militants and the Meiteis on May 3 in Churachandpur and its bordering areas of Bishnupur district.
Many reports say that the violence has claimed more than 200 lives.
However, official records as Manipur Police told the media on September 14 in Imphal said that there are 175 deaths of which 166 can be identified while nine death bodies remain unidentified. Of the 175 dead bodies 79 bodies have been claimed while 96 remain unclaimed – 28 at the motuary of Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Lamphel in Imphal West district, 26 at the motuary of Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS), Porompat in Imphal East district and 42 at the motuary of Churachandpur Medical College, Churachandpur in Churachanpur district of Manipur.
Thirty two persons are reported still missing. In the violent conflict, 1,108 persons were wounded. 5, 172 houses were burned down and destroyed. 386 religous structures including 254 churches and 132 temples were destroyed, according the police briefing to the media as on September 14.
The IGP (Ops) I K Muivah further told the media that 5668 arms and 6,64,002 ammunitions were snatched away from the armouries of the state security forces including Manipur Police Training College, Police Stattions and India Reserved Battalions. As on September 14, 1329 arms, 15,500 ammunitions and 400 bombs have been recovered.
However, the State both the Government of India (GOI) and Government of Manipur (GOM) cannot control the violence and also do not state its clear position about the ongoing violent conflict between the Kuki-Zomi militants and the Meiteis.
The almost five-month old (144 days on September 23) violent conflict continues though the gun fights are now not as frequent as earlier.
Meanwhile, The Hindu on last Sunday, September 17 has reported that the Union Government is considering a phased withdrawal of the Rapid Action Force (RAF), a specialised anti-riot Central police force, from violence-hit Manipur. It was told by a senior government official that the continuous exposure of the RAF to the anti-insurgency theatre may be not suitable for a force trained in crowd control and law and order duties, including agitation and communal incidents.
The significance of the statement of the unnamed senior government official is that it implicates the security response from both the Central and State Governments to the ongoing violent conflict appears to be counter-insurgency while the civilians are protesting to end the violence.
Moreover, The Hindu reported that they have accessed an internal report sent by the RAF on July 6. The internal report says an RAF unit was attacked with “glass balls, stones, sharp iron rods and petrol bombs” when they tried to stop a mob of around 3,000 persons from looting weapons from a police armoury in Thoubal on July 4.
The report by RAF said that on July 4, two companies were rushed to the incident spot around 4 p.m., and they were attacked by “a mob of women folk Meira Paibi”, who did not allow RAF troops and Assam Rifle combatants to move to the IRB camp despite repeated requests and announcements.
“On reaching the incident site mob of approximately 1000-2000 persons started pelting stones, glass balls and petrol bombs on RAF” and its vehicles. “Later from the incident spot one case of 7.62 bullet, one lever of hand grenade was recovered by indicating that it may have been fired by unruly mob which implicates that the violent mob is using sophisticated weapons,” the report said.
“One major concern is the disregard for the specialised nature of the RAF,” treating it as ‘regular CAPF’, “neglecting the fact that RAF has minimal fire power and focuses on quick response with minimal lethality”.
“This poses a threat to security forces particularly the RAF whose primary responsibility is for dealing with riots arising from agitations, bandhs and strikes of religious and communal nature and shall not be deployed in anti-terrorist counter insurgency operations. It is not structured and equipped to counter any insurgency situation. Use of TSMS [tear gas smoke shells] by RAF in such situations may be met with firing from within the mob which may result in loss of precious lives,” the report said.
The report said that the force should not be deployed during night hours in far-flung areas without regular troops, and that, “Deploying RAF against its mandated role could lead to serious untoward situation considering the present scenario in Manipur.”
The report flags the lack of judicious use of the RAF, and its inappropriate deployment in high risk areas, with the absence of senior police officers and magistrates at the scene of the incidents.
“The superintendent of police (SP) of the district fails to visit even once to the incident spot. Additionally, despite repeated request magistrates are often unavailable/ not provided at critical incidents. This demonstrates a significant insensitivity and lack of coordination resulting in mismanaged crowd control and handling of serious conflicts,” it said.
The report added that the deployment in districts covered by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) presents a significant risk, and as the current trend in Manipur indicates, the “crowd composition consists mainly of women and civilians, while the latter has been observed to resort to firing weapons”.
Apparantly, the report appears trying to state that protestors consisting of women Meira Paibis and civilians resort to firing weapons and the RAF personnel are deployed in the anti-insurgency theatre in Manipur.
Another important report is that the Meitei miscreants are modifying civil vehicles to resemble Assam Rifles trucks.
Newspapers including The Hindu on September 23 reported that the Assam Rifles has written to the Manipur police alerting the latter that “few Meitei miscreants” may use refurbished civilian trucks, which resemble vehicles used by the paramilitary force, for “anti-national activities” to tarnish the reputation of the security force.
The letter sent by the Assam Rifles on September 18 to the Churachandpur Superintendent of Police said that it was reliably learnt that “few Meitei miscreants with the help of VBIGs [valley based insurgent groups] have acquired many used TATA 407 (mini trucks) from civil market and have converted them to resemble the vehicles being used by the Assam Rifles by painting and putting the AR insignia.”
It said the vehicles are learnt to be located in the Kakching area, a valley district.
The letter added that camouflaging the civilian vehicles to make them appear as that of AR clearly shows “the nefarious intention of VBIGs to tarnish the image of Assam Rifles or to utilise the same vehicle for anti-national activities.”
More importantly, over the course of the past week, there have been mass protests in the valley over the arrest of five people who were found to be in possession of firearms and wearing camouflage uniforms. The people said that though they wear camouflage uniforms possessing amrs, they are village protection volunteers who protect the villagers while the security forces fail to protect them from the surrounding hills by the Kuki-Zomi militants.
In the latest development, on Friday (September 22) night, Manipur Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren office released an announcement that security forces will start a “strong and comprehensive search operation” in 15 days to recover illegal weapons not surrendered by then.
“The state government is willing to take a considerate view for the persons submitting such illegal weapons within these 15 days. At the end of the 15 days, security forces, both of the Centre and the State will undertake a strong and comprehensive search operation all over the state to recover such weapons, and all persons associated with any illegal weapons will be dealt with severely, as per the law,” said a statement by the Chief Minister’s Office.
It reiterated statements being made by the police since the last one week that “there have been reports of extortion, threats and abduction by miscreants/groups using illegal weapons”.
“This is a serious matter and the State Government will take strong action against such miscreants/ groups in any part of the state,” the statement added.
Now, it is quite obvious that the Governments both the Central and State and security agencies are preparing grounds to conduct massive combing operation in Manipur given the deployment of the huge number of army and paramilitary personnel.
Senior Editor: Imphal Review of Arts and Politics
