The State Government needs a rethink : Replacing AR at check points
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 28 2020 -

The State Government needs a rethink and pronto.

In deciding that State forces will replace Assam Rifles at all the check posts, the State Government may just be delivering the point that it cannot remain as silent spectators to the goondaism of some of the AR men at the check posts, but to take a Cabinet decision to replace all AR personnel from the said check posts may be taking things too far.

Approach the Union Home Ministry to effect the change, is the stand of the State Cabinet and perhaps this is where the slip lies.

There is nothing to indicate that the Union Home Ministry will give the nod to the proposal of the State Government and while one can understand the feeling of angst of the State Government given that a lady IPS officer was recently abused by a jawan of the Assam Rifles at Khudengthabi check post along the Imphal-Moreh highway, the decision to replace all Assam Rifles personnel with State forces at the check posts may be taking things too far.

Or is it a case of the State Government openly siding with the IPS Association but then the IPS Association has so far not gone to the extent of demanding that the Assam Rifles personnel should be replaced by State forces at any of the numerous check posts.

And remember the Imphal-Moreh highway is infamous as the route of all smugglers-drugs, gold and other contraband items.

Here the Assam Rifles personnel are doing a decent job, arresting many smugglers and seizing huge quantities of drugs, especially along the Imphal-Moreh highway.

What is needed is for the Assam Rifles personnel to learn some manners. This should do.

Teach them to respect other humans and things should fall in order and this should not be such a tall order to follow.

The check post at Khudengthabi is a case in point where the Assam Rifles personnel are known to have treated passengers along the said route like dirt and this is something which should be taken up at the highest level.

But this cannot and should not be equated with replacing the Assam Rifles personnel with State forces, for this will not serve any purpose.

In the long years that the Assam Rifles has been posted at the numerous check posts, it must have established a network of intelligence and this network must have surely come to aid them in detecting and arresting many of the drug smugglers from across the border.

Replacing them now with State forces will negate all the good works that have been done so far.

Let the SIT investigate the charges levelled by the young lady IPS officer and let things proceed from there.

No point in asking that the Assam Rifles personnel be replaced by State forces at the various check posts.

In raising the question of replacing the Assam Rifles with State forces, the State Government has delivered an important point though it is impractical and this is something which should not blow over the heads of the top brass of the Assam Rifles and the State Government.