Armed conflict toll highest in 2021
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, December 01 2021:
Year 2021 recorded the highest number of civilians, security force (SF) personnel and insurgents killed in insurgency related incidents in the state in the last three years while 2017 recorded highest number of deaths in the last five years.
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, union minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai informed the house that 2016 reported 31 deaths which included 11 civilians, 11 security forces and 9 insurgents.
In 2017, 53 deaths were reported which include 23 civilians, 8 security forces, and 22 insurgents.
Altogether 25 deaths were reported in 2018 and they included 8 civilians, 7 SFs and 10 insurgents.
Only 16 deaths were reported in 2019 out of which seven were civilians and nine were insurgents.
The number was reduced to 10 deaths in 2020 which included three security forces and seven insurgents.
However, the figure spiked to 32 in the current year up to November 15 and they included nine civilians, five security personnel and 18 insurgents.
In the last five years, Manipur recorded the highest number of casualties at 167 deaths among the northeast states followed by Assam (153), Arunachal Pradesh (69), Meghalaya (40), Nagaland (29) and Tripura (3) while Mizoram reported no casualties in the same period.
The year-wise number of insurgency related incidents occurred in North Eastern Region since 2014 onwards and current year up to November 15 are 824 in 2014, 574 in 2015, 484 in 2016, 308 in 2017, 252 in 2018, 223 in 2019, 163 in 2020 and 187 in 2021.The union minister of state further informed that no separate fund is allocated for military operations in North Eastern Region.
However, Central government is reimbursing the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) to the North Eastern states.