RPF refutes AR's claim
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, March 26, 2013:
Categorically rejecting the claim that 55 year old Koijam Gourahari of Leirongthel Lamkhai is a cadre of the outfit, the Revolutionary People's Front has today asserted that by linking the elderly man with the bomb blast of March 23 at Thoubal district in which two AR personnel died, the Assam Rifles is venting its frustrations on the civil population.
In a statement issued to the press today, the outfit said that Gourahari is not in any way related to the PLA nor its activities and rubbished the claim that he was arrested along with one 9 mm pistol, two live bullets, one Chinese hand grenade and 500 kgs of plastic explosives during a search operation jointly launched by Assam Rifles and Thoubal police commandos.
The Assam Rifles is targeting an elderly man, whose son happens to a cadre of the PLA, alleged the outfit and added that Gourahari has not seen his son for 15 years.
Tasting defeat the Assam Rifles deemed it better to target family members of cadres of the outfit, alleged the statement and added that there is every possibility of more innocent people being arrested under concocted charges that they were involved in the bomb blast.
Addressing the people, the outfit said that death and casualty is part and parcel of any conflict and added that the struggle taken up by the RPF is to regain the lost sovereignty of the land.
In as much as collateral damages are inevitable, the outfit has been doing its utmost not to inflict any sort of damages to the public, it maintained.