Detecting illegal immigrants : Sanitise Moreh now !
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 03 2023 -

Moreh should be thoroughly sanitised now.

The Assam Rifles must be made to fall in line for they are here to assist the Government of Manipur, though they may report to the Union Home Ministry.

And they need to be reminded that it was none other than the Union Home Minister himself who pointed to the involvement of forces from beyond the border in the ongoing clash between the Meiteis and the Kukis.

Certain pictures have emerged.

Ever since the State police started the cordon and search operations a total of 43 illegal immigrants from across the border have been pulled up.

Does not need the mind of a genius to make out that in a matter of a few years the illegal immigrants will get their names included in the electoral rolls, become bonafide citizens of the land, get all the benefits of being included in the Scheduled Tribe list of the Constitution of India, spread out and occupy more forest land and claim the land they have occupied as their ancestral land.

This is what has been happening and the assassination of a police officer at Moreh on October 31 is just a pointer to the larger game plan at work.

As an article in the highly respected Swarajya and which The Sangai Express is carrying as the lead story says, the Kuki militants are ringing out the loud message to everyone and the State Government to lay off.

‘Moreh is our turf’ and all should stay away and this point was underlined in the yet again clinically executed ambush of the reinforcement team of the State police which was rushed to the border town after the said police officer was snipered and killed.

All the Meiteis have been driven out from the border town after the clinically organised May 3 violence erupted in all its ugliness and if at all there is ethnic cleansing then Moreh and Churachandpur stand as the apt testimony.

In a desperate bid to give a distorted and false narrative, it is the fantastically christened Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and the hilariously named Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) which came out with the term ethnic cleansing to describe the retaliation of the Meiteis at Imphal and other parts of the valley districts.

Remember how many Kukis continued to live at Checkon area in Imphal till well into the month of September before they were moved out only after the Assam Rifles bodily lifted them from Imphal.

Since the outbreak of the violence on May 3, The Sangai Express has been at the forefront calling out the lies and deceits spun out with so much dexterity by the ITLF and the CoTU.

The lies continue to pour out, but then what does one expect from a group which has gone overboard to even distort the history of the land and claim the territories of others as their ancestral land ?

If a history of 300 or even 400 years can lead to the claim of ancestral rights then where does that leave the Meiteis and the Nagas who have been here since the dawn of mankind ?

The focus of the Government should be clear and so do too the people.

With the Union Home Minister, External Affairs Minister and even the chief of the RSS pointing fingers at the involvement of elements from across the border, why not raise the demand to abrogate the Suspension of Operation pact ?

Or as shared by a rational, thinking man on the social media, why not raise the demand to review the SoO pact ?

In just a span of 12 days 43 illegal immigrants from across the border have been detected and pulled up at Moreh.

There could be many, many more of such elements.

How did they infiltrate ? Where has the understanding of guarding the border gone ?

This question is critical for more such individuals can be detected and pulled up.

This is where the Government would need to look at the years before the military coup at Myanmar in 2021 in the face of the new settlements that have sprung up across the hills of Manipur and Moreh is one place where the focus should be.

Apart from facilitating easy smuggling in of drugs, Moreh can also be seen as the ideal point to ship in illegal immigrants and increase their population which in turn can alter political representation and land ownership down the decades hence.