Stop burning of homes before talking about integrity: APM
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 01 2023: The prevailing violence in the state is heading in one direction wherein an armed militant group is attacking the civilians openly, which is basically waging war against the Government of India.

Instead of just talking about protecting the integrity of the state, the first step should be to put a stop to the bullets and burning of homes truthfully, Adhivakta Parishad (Lawyers Organisation) Manipur general secretary Salam Rupachandra has stated.

Addressing a press meet at Manipur Press Club here Wednesday, Rupachandra informed that the organisa-tion would be submitting a memorandum to union home minister Amit Shah, who is currently in Manipur, to re-store peace in the state.

He continued that as per the Indian Constitution, security forces are empowered to carry guns but at present, armed groups are shooting innocent civilians and burning down their homes in the state.

Amid this, the only action that is be-ing witnessed is the relentless talk for preserving the integ-rity of the state and imple-mentation of NRC.

Truthfully, the most important action to be taken up at the moment is to first put an end to the fire raging in the state and then find the root cause of the same.

Rupachandra said that In-dia is regarded as a power-ful country with a powerful military.

Manipur is a state in India.

As such, the present violence being perpetrated is an attack on the country itself.

The central government needs to take up measures to end the barrage of bullets against civil-ians and burning down of their houses.

It is questionable why the central forces are turning a blind eye when the civilians are being shot at right in front of them.

This, in turn, has made the people lose their trust on se-curity forces and have taken it upon themselves to defend their own lives while demand-ing the forces to be removed.

Meanwhile, the prevailing vi-olence has also prompted the question whether the central and state governments are in-tentionally delaying taking up their responsibilities in curb-ing the same, he remarked Adhivakta Parishad Ma-nipur president I Jugeshwar observed that the violence has been going on in the state for over 28 days.

It is the duty of the government to maintain law and order and as such, it could have easily controlled the violence by May 4-5 instead.

People are angry because the security forces, deployed to sensitive areas, seem to be protecting the Kuki militants instead of the civilians.

He continued that the vi-olent incidents did not cease during Amit Shah's stay in Manipur.

It is questionable why the people of the state are being left to live as ref-ugees in their own land.

It is up to the leaders, who are supposedly parents of the people, to decide whether to watch their "children" fight and kill each other, or stop the fighting and discern right from wrong, while suggesting ways to restore normalcy and peace.

Jugeshwar urged the gov-ernment to protect and save the lives of its citizens and provide rehabilitation to those affected.

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