Militancy in Manipur: A Current Close-up Profile
- Part 2 -

Dr. Robbinson Moirangcha *

Activities of the Militant Organisations:

(1) They enter any house at any time of the day or night and demand food and shelter for as many number of days as their discretion allows. Besides being an unwanted guests and uninvited harassment to the family, it puts the members at further risks of being harassed by the Security Forces. And, they take away any vehicle from anybody and leave it wherever they feel free to. If the owner is harassed by the security forces who seize the vehicle, that's not their headache.

(2) These people and their sympathisers brandish their affiliation to these organisations to snatch the upper hand in any type of dealing-personal or professional- with people who do not want to have anything to do with them, be it husband-wife quarrel, conflicts of love interests, family and property feuds, etc. There are many hushed-up instances of the militant cadres impregnating innocent girls and then leaving them to fend for themselves, or of the militant cadres/ sympathisers raping the girls of their fancy to force them to marry them.

(3) None of their personnel is liable to a just trial and punishment. They get away with almost anything under the sun, be it abduction, rape or personal revenge. They carry out these things with full immunity and protection of their organisations that will never raise a finger against them. They commit murders for various reasons. Because a person had a tiff with some of their personnel over some personal or familial matters.

Because the person would not pay the amount of ransom they demanded. Or because the Govt official will not give a job to a person of their choice or pass their candidate/student in a particular examination (when they find it very convenient to claim the official was killed because he was indulging in corruption). If a rival business group pays them enough money, the militant cadres will finish the other rival group.

(4) They massacre the innocent migrant workers from Mainland India to "teach the community a lesson". The lesson? The lesson that if the migrant labourers do not part with a specific percentage of their hard-earned money, they have to leave their work in Manipur and go back. If the workers are not willing to go for any of the two options, they will pay with their lives.

The migrant workers who were brought to Manipur by their circumstances of having to look for a means to feed their hungry wives and small children, despite the knowledge that Manipur is a dangerous place infested with innumerable and omnipresent dacoits. These militants (the saviours of the people) are never bothered what consequences will befall to the Manipuris who had to leave to the state and study in Mainland India mainly because of the non-functioning education system of the state they have destroyed so systematically and effectively.

5) They take up all the PWD contracts for constructing roads, building, etc., and spend hardly 10% of the amount sanctioned for the job while the rest goes to their pockets to pay stipends for their cadres!!! The quality of the works they have done is known to everyone, but no one dares to speak up because they will finish them off!!! We know about the Flyover project in Imphal City? The money that was to be used for a proper construction was usurped by the militants. It had to be truncated and it is now not a fly-over. It is a fly-up-and-fall-hard.

6) They tax all government employees and businessmen in the state. Whenever they see a new building coming up, or whenever they get a report (that need not be true in every case!!!) that a person is making financial assets, they will send out demand letters to these people who, despite their non-subscription to their violent ideology, have to cough out the money they earned by toiling day in and day out.

Why should they force people to support their cause? Why can't they leave others alone so people can mind their own business of earning a living through sincere hard work? And remember, there are nearly 50 odd groups of these dacoits, some with only 6-10 members. They have the guns. People have to fear for their lives.

7) They are running business enterprises through third parties. Within the state of Manipur, they have Hospital chains, Laboratory chains and Collection Centres of Laboratories based in Mainland India, Drugs and Medicinal Supply Chains, Grocery Supply Chains, Shops, Real estate properties and what not? The same is true in other states and countries (Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim, Assam and Bangladesh).

8) They don't spare even such priceless facilities like RIMS from their extortion bully. The NEC people are considering moving the facility out of Manipur. Whose loss is this? SAHARA Airlines had to stop their services in Manipur because of the them!!! If the Loktak Hydro-Electric Project is being run with Central Fund, the Centre has every right to claim its share of the pie. It is the same rule with any Central establishment anywhere in the country. It is not Manipur-specific. What was the state of affairs when the Project was under state Government? Why was the project handed over to the Centre?

9) NEXUS WITH POLITICIANS: They side with specific political parties at the time of Elections, and play in the hands of their respective candidates, and do such dirty things like extorting money from the rival candidates to hamper their chances of victory!!! Moreover each politician has the habit of nurturing a militant organisation mainly because he needs to build a security cover for himself.

10) Nexus with State Security Forces: It is a common knowledge that there is a nexus between IRB personnel, Manipur Police Commando personnel and even the Assam Rifles personnel at multiple levels through an understanding better described a "SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP". Their cadres execute loot and extortion in each other's garbs: Security personnel in the garb of militants, and militants in the garb of Security personnel.

Why do security personnel indulge in extortion/loot? These very people got their jobs after paying hefty amounts of money as bribes to the Government officials that include the Ministers. They got the money many times on a loan from other people or sometimes after selling whatever properties they had. They have to recover their "investment" anyway and anyhow.

11) These militant dacoits use the common people as their shield. They keep exploiting people's emotions through Meira Paibi Associations (the innocent Emas who will never suspect the intentions of their sons-of-the-soil!). They drum up agitations, road blockades and many forms of dharnas at the slightest of opportunities, besides conducting seminars where they "encourage" some scholars (reluctant and non-reluctant both) to speak favourably of their "struggle" for identity and independence through the lens of past wrongs and present human rights violations by the Indian Army.

Everything else is a non-entity, be it food, water, electricity, roads, education, infrastructure, economic self reliance, development and progress, or human rights violation of most extreme degree and most savage nature by the militants themselves. If anyone speaks up against them, he/she is forced to issue a public apology or make amends with some "donation". If he/she refuses to abide by their diktat, h/she has to pay with his/her life.

To be continued....)