Lt Gen L. Nishikanta Singh (retd), who served in various positions in the Army for 40 years, compared the ethnic violence devastated Manipur with war-torn Libya, Lebanon, Nigeria, Syria.
Terming Lt Gen Singh’s (retd) tweet as “an extraordinarily sad call”, former Army Chief Ved Prakash Malik said that the law and order situation in Manipur needs “urgent attention at highest level”.
Army Chief during the Kargil War, (1999), Gen Malik, who served as the 19th Chief of Army Staff from September 30, 1997 to September 30, 2000, tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah in his tweet.
Lt Gen Singh (retd) tweeted: “I’m just an ordinary Indian from Manipur living a retired life. The state is now ‘stateless’. Life and property can be destroyed anytime by anyone just like in Libya, Lebanon, Nigeria, Syria, etc. It appears Manipur has been left to stew in its own juice. Is anyone listening?”
As ethnic violence continues in Manipur for around 50 days now, in an unprecedented move, 15 Manipur-based organisations of various communities have urged the United Nations and various international agencies, seeking their help to end the ongoing crisis in the northeastern state.
The 15 organisations, in their joint memorandum, called for urgent attention on the issue of hunger, poverty, militarisation, partisan role of the central security forces, and violation of the ground rules of tripartite Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement by the Kuki militants.
In another significant development, state Chief Minister N. Biren Singh was almost sidelined and Union Home Minister Amit Shah is closely monitoring the day-to-day situations in Manipur.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, whose house in Imphal was vandalised and set on fire by a mob on Thursday night, said that despite the presence of huge number of central forces, the law and order situation in Manipur has totally failed.
Expressing his shock over this incident, Singh, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Inner Manipur parliamentary seat on a BJP ticket, said that the existing state government could not maintain the law and order situation despite the Centre providing a large number of forces.
“I do not know why the state mechanism has failed,” said Singh, who earlier wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the Manipur crisis.
Explaining the reasons behind the state’s violence, Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said that infiltrators from across the border and militants have caused the ongoing unrest in the state and it is not an enmity between two communities.
Manipur shares around 400 km unfenced border with Myanmar.
Once again rejecting the demand for separate administrations (equivalent to a separate state) for the tribals as demanded by the 10 Kuki MLAs (including seven of the BJP), the Chief Minister said: “Anyone can make a demand in a democracy, it is their democratic right. We have said on a number of occasions that there would be no separate administration and the territorial integrity of the state would remain intact.”
Union Minister Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, however, had said that the Kuki MLAs raised the separate administration’s demand under tremendous pressure from the militants.
Earlier, the Manipur government had apprised the Centre that three Kuki militant outfits — the Kuki National Army (KNA), Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA) and Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA) — are not adhering to ground rules of the tripartite Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement, signed on August 22, 2008.
On a number of occasions, the Chief Minister accused the Kuki militants of instigating violence and prompting the tribals to agitate against the government’s actions against illegal poppy cultivation and drug menace.
After his four-day (May 29 to June 1) Manipur visit, Union Home Minister Amit Shah warned the Kuki militants to adhere to the ground rules, otherwise they would face severe action.
Dropping a bombshell, six student and youth organisations last week sought a clarification from the BJP’s central leadership about the claim made by militant outfit United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) that the outlawed group had backed BJP candidates in the 2017 assembly elections.
The organisations, including the influential All Manipur Students’ Union and Manipuri Students’ Federation, in a joint statement said that it could be possible that the Kuki militants supported the BJP during the 2017 election after getting an assurance that their demand of a separate administration could be considered.
They observed that if this is true, then the Centre is playing divide and rule in Manipur, they stated.
“It is time for the people to fight against the Government of India’s divide and rule policy. We demand the central BJP leadership to clarify its stand on the claims made by the UKLF. Otherwise, the people will boycott the BJP and root out the party from the soil of Manipur,” the statement said.
The organisations also urged the Election Commission of India to take appropriate action on the claim made by the UKLF.
“What made the people unhappy is that the Kuki militants are openly violating the ground rules of the Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement and the government has not done anything.
Ten Kuki MLAs, seven are from the ruling BJP, have openly supported the Kuki militants’ demand for a separate administration or Kukiland. Why is the central BJP not trying to find a solution through these MLAs? Why is the state BJP not taking any action against these 10 MLAs till today? Amidst all these, the open support given by some para-military forces to Kuki militants led to the suspicion on the role of the Government of India,” the statement said.
These organisations demanded that the remaining 50 MLAs should go to Delhi and raise their voice against the Kuki militants.
Despite the deployment of 40,000 additional troops in Manipur, the government could not stop the Kuki militants from attacking the innocent Meetei villagers, they said.
In another development, Manipur government’s Deputy Advocate General H. Debendra Singh in connection with a complaint informed the Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC) that the Union government has not imposed Article 355 in the state of Manipur as yet.
Earlier, it was reported that the Central government has imposed Article 355 in Manipur.
Article 355 is a part of emergency provisions contained in the Constitution that empowers the Centre to take all necessary steps to protect a state against internal disturbances and external aggression.
Rights & Risks Analysis Group (RRAG), an independent think-tank based in Delhi, had urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to consider imposing President’s rule in Manipur in view of the failure to bring the ethnic violence under control despite the imposition of Article 355 on May 6.
After the ethnic violence broke out on May 3, senior IAS officer Vineet Joshi was appointed as the new Chief Secretary and 1993 batch IPS officer Rajiv Singh, belonging to the neighbouring Tripura cadre, as Director General of Police (DGP) replacing state police chief P. Doungel, a 1987 batch IPS officer of Manipur cadre. Doungel has been posted in the newly-created post of Officer-on-Special Duty (OSD) in the Home Department.
Immediately after the violence began, the central government had appointed former chief of the Central Reserve Police Force and retired IPS Kuldiep Singh as a security adviser to the Manipur government.
After Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit, Kuldiep Singh has been assigned as the head of the joint security command of all central and state forces.
Political analysts said that not taking timely actions against the Kuki militants despite signing of agreement 15 years ago, indifferent attitude over the infiltrations from Myanmar and taking drastic steps against the poppy cultivators without making alternative livelihood for the farmers and faulty utilisation of the security forces are some of the main reasons behind the oubreak of the violence in Manipur.
The devastating ethnic violence, which has so far left over 120 people killed and more than 400 injured, began in Manipur on May 3 after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised by a tribal student body in the hill districts of the state to protest against the Meitei community’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) status demand.
However, unofficial figures of the death toll and injury could be much higher.
(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in)
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