Slamming the door on peace pact : Booming guns of the rebels
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 09 2015 -

Bidding adieu to peace. Or peace pact.

SS Khaplang, leader of a faction of the NSCN obviously knew what he would do when he decided to abrogate the cease fire pact with the Government of India on March 28 this year.

If not for anything else then at least the series of attack his men have launched against the security personnel should testify this.

Soon after the cease fire pact with the Government of India was scrapped, the NSCN (K) struck with deadly precision and the figures should tell.

One May 3, eight or nine Assam Rifles men were killed in an ambush at Mon district of Nagaland followed by yet another strike on May 6 in which one AR man was killed at Kohima.

This was preceded by an attack on Assam Rifles men at Kohima sometime in April in which four personnel were injured.

The deadliest attack came on June 4 when 18 personnel of the Dogra Regiment were killed in a clinically executed ambush at Paraolon village near Moltuk in Chandel district.

This was followed by yet another attack on the camp of the Assam Rifles in Arunachal Pradesh but there was no human casualty in the latest attack. Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

SS Khaplang and his men have clearly demonstrated that they have it in them to show their presence in the North East States and this must be a worrying thought for the Government of India.

More than demonstrating their presence, but these attacks, particularly the June 4 ambush, have clearly demonstrated that some armed groups operating in the North East region have managed to come under a common front and they are more than ready to carry out their attacks jointly.

Something which have been tried earlier, but perhaps this is one of those rare occasions when the coming together of different underground outfits under one common front has been demonstrated with such deadly effect.

Fire power coupled with the art of striking up alliances with other armed groups.

SS Khaplang and his men have shown this, but the question of how long such an alliance will work is a matter of conjecture.

This question is also important in the face of the fact that numerous underground outfits in the region have seen vertical splits from within very often.

The NSCN (K) too came into being after the NSCN split into the IM and K faction in 1988.

There have been other splits within the Khaplang group, with Khole and Kitovi moving out followed by Wangtin Naga and P Tikhak earlier this year.

Another important group of the common front floated recently is the ULFA which has seen a split with the Arabinda Rajkhowa group engaged in a dialogue with the Government of India while the other one, christened ULFA (Independence), is still carrying on the fight under Paresh Baruah.

The same thing can be said of the other groups which together have formed the common front.

This is about the underground outfits which are engaged in a bush war with the security personnel of the Government of India, but the new developments must have surely been taken seriously by Delhi.

Remember the NSCN (K) took up the guns against the Indian Army, after observing a cease fire pact since 2001. What went wrong ?

Good to remember too that in the more than 10 years of cease fire no political dialogue had started between the Khaplang group and the Government of India.

For the moment it is back to guns and the jungles for the NSCN (K) after being in a cease fire agreement for over ten years and here lies yet another example of a peace effort going up in smoke.