Entrusting NIA to deliver justice, expose complicity
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: November 20, 2024 -

AT a glance, the decision taken by the ruling party MLAs in an emergency meeting held at the chief minister's secretariat on Monday appears to be aimed at neutralising the highly charged issue of abduction and murder of children and women by Kuki militants in Jiribam district for tracking down the murderers in the hills dominated by Kuki and its kindred tribes would be an onerous task, if not totally impossible.

Since outbreak of the Kuki-Meetei conflict in May last year, valley-based civil societies have been demanding that the government either provide fool-proof security to Meetei settlements in the fringe areas or take stringiest action against Kuki militants involved in attacking, injuring and killing civilians, but to no avail.

Therefore, it would be wishful thinking that the ruling MLAs' resolution to initiate mass operations against Kuki militants within seven days in response to the recent brutal killing of six women and children in Jiribam would fructify, if the said decision is not upheld by the central government.

Without the involvement of central paramilitary forces in tracing and hunting down the Kuki militants it is obvious that state forces alone cannot complete the task other than execute the decision as a formality.

Moreover, taking into account of the fact that the Kuki militants possess assorted arms and war weaponries, follow up action on the MLAs' decision would necessitate cooperation and diligence of state forces deployed in Kuki-populated regions, which is also an unlikely proposition for state's security personnel belonging to the Kuki community are mostly likely to empathise with their blood brothers.

Realising ineffectuality of such a decision could also be the premise for the MLAs consenting to entrust the National Investigation Agency for conducting probe into high-profile cases, including the killing of the six civilians, the death of a Hmar woman in Jiribam, and the killing of a Meetei woman farmer at Saiton, Bishnupur district.

The NIA, which is also handling the Koutruk drone bombing and the Kwakta explosion cases related to the on-going Manipur violence, as well as abduction and murder of Zeliangrong socio-political activist Athuan Abonmai in 2021, to name a few, might take time to nail the culprits but there seems to be no better option at the juncture other than trusting the agency to deliver justice.

While the CBI and the NIA are both central probe agencies, one main difference between the two is that the CBI needs consent from states to begin an investigation within their borders, whereas the latter could carry out raids and round up suspects on its own, as had been proven by arresting the prime accused in the Kwakta blast case.

Set up in 2018, in response to an outrageous act of terrorism in India - the sea-borne attack which struck at the heart of Mumbai, and its sleuths proving their mettle in cracking confounding cases, there is every reason to believe that the NIA would deliver justice, sooner or later.

Thus, of all the decisions taken in Monday's meeting of the ruling party MLAs, the wisdom of handing over the high-profile cases to the NIA is commendable as it is also possible that in the course of the investigative process the probe agency might unearth complicity of state and central forces, as well as involvement of foreign elements in the Manipur violence.