People are not cattle to be branded : Not authorised to impose curfew
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 02, 2015 -

The stand of The Sangai Express is consistent. Highway blockade of any sort is unwanted and unfortunate.

Same is the blockade imposed and spearheaded by the Kuki Women Human Rights Organisation, Tengnoupal block and Kuki Students’ Organisation, Chandel on the Imphal-Moreh stretch of National Highway 102.

However it becomes important to study why the blockade has been imposed in the first place.

If what the villagers of Tengnoupal have had to say is true, and they have no reason to lie, then it is time for the Assam Rifles authority to give it some serious thoughts.

Not allowed to move around after 5 or 6 pm and this is an example of the military overstepping its brief.

No doubt the Assam Rifles posted along the highway have a job to do but this does not give them the license to impose some sort of a curfew along the highway or in any village after a certain time in the evening.

Difficult to say from where the top honchos of the Assam Rifles got the brilliant idea to tell all people of the area to stay indoors or not move out after 5 or 6 in the evening.

Given the law and order situation and the sensitive nature of border areas, stringent security measures should no doubt be taken up but in the process care should be taken to ensure that the civilians are not subjected to any unnecessary harassment.

From the manner in which the highway blockade has been imposed, it may be safe to surmise that the Assam Rifles personnel have failed to win over the people.

And restricting people’s movement is certainly not going to win any friends.

More than apparent that it was not without reason why the people of Tengnoupal have trashed the slogan of the Assam Rifles that they are friends of the hill people.

Anyone taking the Imphal-Moreh route must have undergone the experience of being thoroughly searched at many of the check points put up along the highway.

Nothing wrong in this for the security personnel are doing their job but it is hard to even believe that people can be treated like cattle, especially at the Khudengthabi check post.

Makes absolutely no sense to brand the drivers of vehicles with a marker on their finger tips to let them through.

Not the first time that this is being commented upon and certainly it will not be the last, that is as long as the Assam Rifles men are under the impression that the people can be branded.

Humiliating it is and what is stopping the Assam Rifles men from coming out with alternate arrangements so that the drivers or anyone are not branded ?

Drivers or men are not cattle to be branded on their finger tips. This is demeaning.

Instead of branding the drivers, the Assam Rifles authority can give them tokens or even a piece of paper after the checking.

Not a difficult task to implement, but then when have the sensibilities of the people mattered to the men in uniform ?

The branding exercise should stop.

It demeans and can be insulting to the people.

Moreover time for the Assam Rifles to come to terms with the fact that they are not authorised to impose curfew.