There are no plans to replace Assam Rifles (AR) with any other Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) in Manipur, a senior government official told The Hindu on Friday.
Several BJP legislators and Meitei groups have accused the oldest paramilitary force in the country of “biased role by favouring and supporting one side only”.
On August 5, the Manipur Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the ninth battalion of AR for “obstruction of duty” and helping Kuki militants flee in the Kwakta area of Bishnupur.
Following the FIR, the Army wrote to the government seeking clarification on the criminal charges.
A source said that the AR was deployed in the said area, a “buffer zone” between the Kuki and Meitei settlements, on the orders of the unified command with clear instructions that State police commandos will not move to the hills for any operation independently.
“There are no plans to remove the AR from Manipur, action is taken if there are specific complaints,” said the government official.
The official added that except nine, all bodies in Imphal hospitals have been identified and after a suitable burial place is identified in Churachandpur, the bodies will be sent there. As many as 152 people have been killed since May 3.
Ethnic violence between the Kuki and Meitei communities erupted in Manipur on May 3 after a tribal solidarity march to protest the High Court’s order to consider including the majority Meitei people in the Scheduled Tribe list.
AR, which is under administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), is under the operational control of the Army.
It is primarily deployed along the Myanmar border with presence in the interiors of Manipur. On May 2, anticipating trouble and violence, the Army had moved in additional 17 columns to both the valley and hills.
“While 10 columns were placed on a standby in Imphal East and Imphal West, three columns were stationed in Churachandpur and four in Moreh. This is why after the violence broke in the afternoon on May 3, AR columns were able to fan out to the affected areas at 8.30 p.m., within minutes of receiving the order from headquarters,” the source said.
The columns saved 9,000 lives in the first few hours - around 5,000 people were rescued in Churachandpur and around 2,000 each in Imphal and Moreh. “Around 7,000 Meitei people were rescued by AR in the first 16 hours,” said the source adding that 17,000 people were provided shelter in Army and AR camps temporarily.
The source added that on May 29, around 2,000 Meitei people were rescued from Serou under aerial surveillance and 5,000 members from the community were rescued from Moreh over a protracted period of 15 days in May.
Meanwhile the 10 Kuki-Zomi-Hmar MLAs from Manipur, including six from the BJP said in a statement that they were disheartened by Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement in Parliament that the “ethnic cleansing on Kuki-Zomi-Hmar people is a disturbance caused by infiltration from Myanmar post the 2021 Junta takeover.”
“Our people have been violently cleansed from the valley, and our colonies have been razed to the ground. We reiterate our stand that the Central government must give recognition to this demographic segregation in the form of a separate administration through a political settlement. We urge the Union Home Ministry to furnish details of illegal infiltrators from Myanmar and proof of their participation in the village defence efforts of Kuki-Zo-Hmar villages. We urge the Solicitor-General to furnish proof of the dead bodies in Imphal mortuaries belonging to illegal infiltrators, failing which due apology to the court and the nation would be in order,” the statement said.
