Friends of the hills, foes of the valley
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: August 10, 2023 -

Giving credence to the public demand, more specifically to that of the valley people, for withdrawal of Assam Rifles from Manipur, the state's BJP unit has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting for timely intervention and replacing the "partisan" men in camouflage uniform from being deployed in the tiny north-eastern state by any other paramilitary forces permanently.

While, whether personnel of any other central paramilitary forces, who have been thoughtlessly thrown into a situation as complex as that of Manipur at present, would act otherwise or not is a moot question, it is heartening to know that the ruling saffron party has not been blind and deaf to the public outcry against the conduct, nay, the misconduct of the Assam Rifles in the ongoing violent conflict between the ethnic Meetei/Meitei and Kuki Chin communities in Manipur.

In a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister "after due consideration and hectic deliberations," BJP Manipur Pradesh has taken serious note of the fact that the role of Assam Rifles in maintaining peace and tranquillity in the current unrest in the state has come under considerable amount of criticism and public outrage.

In the memorandum signed jointly by president A Sharda Devi, vice president N Nimbus Singh and Ch Chidananda Singh, general secretaries P Premananda Meitei and L Deben Meitei and five other vice presidents and general secretaries, the state BJP unit has also not shy away from highlighting the point that the Assam Rifles has failed to maintain neutrality since day one of the outbreak of current conflict on May 3, 2023 and that the partisanship of the paramilitary force in this highly delicate and sensitive ethnic unrest continues to be witnessed unabatedly even today.

As we have said through this column earlier, there have been serious allegations of Assam Rifles personnel siding with one warring group or remaining as mute spectator and doing nothing to stop the senseless killing from happening, or worst still, trying to prevent the state police force and commando personnel from engaging with the armed Kuki militants who are being backed by narco-terrorists infiltrated from across the border.

So, it is even more heartening that the memorandum of the BJP Manipur Pradesh has cited the Kwakta incident of August 5 and apprised the Prime Minister of the gruesome incident wherein three Meitei/Meetei civilians were brutally hacked and shot to dead by Kuki militants while they were sleeping in their homes but the Assam Rifles stopped the state forces from pursuing the killers by placing their vehicle in the middle of the road leading to the village where the Kuki militants were stationing.

Although all of these allegations against the Assam Rifles have been denied time and again through the rebuttals issued by PIB (Defence Wing), the very fact that the state unit of the saffron party, which is in power both in the state and at the centre, has finally taken the trouble of writing to the Prime Minister and laid bare the angst of the public towards the misconduct of the biased Assam Rifles personnel in the current unrest situation in the state means a lot and has given more than credence to the public outcry in the valley for withdrawal of the country's oldest paramilitary force which takes pride in nicknaming itself as the "friends of the hill people," maybe for the obvious reason of being friend to one and foe to another.