Internet ban serving no real purpose
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: May 29, 2023 -
THE relentless attacks on Meetei villages in the foothills by well-armed persons, strongly suspected to be cadres of Kuki outfits which signed the suspension of operation (So0) agreement with governments of India and Manipur, make it crystal clear that such onslaughts are being carried out to create chaos and anxiety among the general populace for a protracted period.
Contrary to the government's notion that curb on internet would help expedite the normalisation process, well-orchestrated and simultaneous attacks launched against the Meetei civilians as well as encounters between security forces and suspected Kuki militants for the past few days underscore that the government's move to suspend internet and subsequent extension of the prohibition is merely hypothetical.
With exception of creating serious problems to ser-vices centred on usage of internet, including the education, health and banking sectors, and curtailing misuse of the social media platforms to some extent, the ground reality is that the curb on accessing internet has been restricting the social media users to expose atrocities com-mitted by the Kuki militants on the civilians in clear violation of the ceasefire ground rules.
The government may have perceived that extending the suspension of internet service would prevent the spread of rumours and videos, photos, and messages, which might affect the law and order situation in the violence-hit state but in reality rumours are rife in the absence of social media as one can't deny the fact that social media plat-forms also serve as a medium to negate spread of false information in case of occurrence of unwanted incidents.
Whenever there is extension of suspension of internet service the officer concerned make it a point to refer to input from the police authorities that there are still reports of incidents like arson of houses and premises, which interestingly are mainly happening in the foothill villages inhab-ited by the Meetei community.
The government authorities might be apprehensive that anti-social elements could use the social media extensively for transmission of images, hate speech and hate video messages inciting the passions of the public which might have serious repercussions on the law and order situation in the state.
However, the seemingly free movement being enjoyed by the Kuki militants and their audacity to launch attacks even in areas where security forces are deployed are hard evidences that the curb on internet hasn't been serving any real purpose other than specu-lation among the public that the ban is to cover up shortcomings on the part of the government to safeguard interest and life of the communities in conflict.
As restriction on use of the internet service, social media in particular, has been in place till date after widespread violence broke out on May 3 in 11 of the 16 districts during and after the 'Tribal Solidarity March' called by the All Tribal Students' Union of Manipur to oppose the demand for inclusion of the Meetei/Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe category, one could safely assume that government of Manipur suspended the internet service to block the keyboard warriors from criticising its abject failure to control the situation.
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