AR/Army take to photography at Loktak area
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 15 2012:
Assam Rifles/Army have been taking photographs of each and every member of the families who are settled around Loktak Lake particularly in Bishnupur district without giving any reason or making any intimation to the civil administration.
A reliable source informed The Sangai Express that AR/Army started taking photographs of villagers with the help of Gram Panchayats without leaving out a single individual since a few days back.
For those individuals who were out of station, their photographs taken earlier were submitted to the AR/Army authority together with house numbers, occupations and parents' names just like census data collection.
Bishnupur district administration maintained that they were never informed or explained about the recent exercise of taking photographs by AR/Army.
Nevertheless, the district administration assured that they would find out the possible reasons and motives for such bizarre and unprecedented exercise.
One top-ranking police officer said that they had no idea why the photographs of villagers were taken on such extensive scale.
Even if there is a need to take photographs of the civilians, it should be done by the civil administration, said the police officer.
One official of Hqs IG AR (South) maintained that no instruction was given to take photographs of villagers.
Yet, he too assured that they would check out if there is any necessity for taking photographs of villagers on such extensive scale.