12 Meiteis killed in one week as Manipur perches on verge of an all-out civil war
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| 12 Meiteis killed in one week as Manipur perches on verge of an all-out civil war Uniexpro.in |
It is the 10th month running since the clashes between the Kukis and the Meiteis broke out on 3 May last year. The mass burning and killing has ceased, but now it seems to be sustained and calculated moves on the part of the Kukis, even as they began targeting Meitei civilians, torturing them and shooting them dead thereafter.
The number has gone up to 10 in the second week of this month. First, they struck at Kumbi when four Meieti wood cutters ventured into their area past the post manned by the Mahar Regiment of the Indian Army.
They were apparently given the goahead by the army personnel to go ahead with the foraging. And when they did not return, a hue and cry were raised, and soon three bodies were discovered, which included a father-son duo, and their bicycles meant for ferrying the wood back were discovered nearby.
It took three days for the fourth body to be discovered, which was found almost in a decomposed state. It was evident that he was heavily tortured, as his teeth were knocked out and his left was totally fractured before he was shot in the head.
The deceased have been identified as Oinam Romen Meitei (38), Thoudam Ibomcha Singh (51), his son Thoudam Anand Singh (27), and Ahanthem Dara Meitei (56). Then on the 18th, two Meitei Village volunteers were also killed by Kuki militants in the Kangchup area, taking the week’s toll to 10. Then on 18 January, four Meiteis who were on duty at a water pump west of Ningthoukhong in Bishenpur district, 33 kilometres from Imphal, were abducted after an army patrol belonging to the Sikh Regiment had come to collect water from the pump.
These four also included a father-son duo, and three bodies were retrieved late at night under fire from the Kukis. The fourth body was recovered a day later, and all bore signs of torture.
But what really stirred up the cauldron was when a patrol party of the Manipur Police commandos came under attack near Moreh College from two Kuki gun-toting militants. They were soon chased down and camped in one of the houses in a nearby village.
The two turned out to be the main accused in the killing of the SubDivisional Police Officer of Moreh Chingtham. Anand in October last year.
Anand was shot dead with a sniper rifle as he was busy inspecting the construction of a helipad. The two were identified as Philip Khaikoholal Khongsai, an ex-serviceman, and Hemkholal Mate, said to be the treasurer of the ruling BJP’s Twengnoupal District mandal. It was a prized catch for the police, and the two were soon remanded to police custody.
Soon, the orchestrated cries to have them released echoed from Kangpokpi and Churachandpur, where the two main Kuki civil society organisations, namely the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) and the Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU), are based. There were also counter-slogan shouts from Imphal, especially from the displaced Meitei people from Moreh, that they could not be released at all.
The latter was in conformity with the practice of consecutive Manipur governments waking up magistrates from their midnight slumbers and making them sign bail orders. But what was not expected was a concerted attempt by the Kuki militants to launch an all-out attack on the Manipur Police Commandos garrison and their outposts. Soon these locations came under heavy machine gun and sniper fire, aided by shelling them with rocket-propelled Grenades, 3inch mortar shells that are only used in regular warfare, and napalm shells and tracer bullets that set ablaze in areas wherever they landed. Thanks to the internet, all these scenes were visible on everyone’s mobile video screens.
Then the voice of Th.Krishnatombi Singh, a police commando veteran and currently SP of the Police Commandos, went viral when he explained the situation: they are being overwhelmed by a concerted attack, which includes Myanmarese-speaking persons, and that even if help is not coming in from Imphal, the Commandos would carry out their duties till the last of them stood.
It was obvious that the western-backed People’s Defence Force, currently at war with the Myanmar Military Junta, was a party to the attack thanks to the large presence of Myanmarese Kukis using weapons that are not even available with the Indian Army—RPGs and Napalm shells, for instance—and that their munitions were running low. Two police commandos were slain in the subsequent battles, and six were injured too.
But what must have triggered the state government's panic reaction was the fact that thousands of youth had gathered first in Thoubal town and, through loudspeakers, asked the India Reserve Battalions and the Manipur Police to join them in the march to Moreh. When this was obviously not forthcoming, the crowd then decided to ransack the armouries of the 3rd India Reserve Battalion located at Khangngabok in ThoubaL District, crying that if you are willing to go, then give us the arms so we can go forth and battle the Kukis in aid of the Police Commandos and also save Moreh in the process.
Then promptly, the Manipur Government wrote to the centre, asking for a designated helicopter to be placed in Imphal for the purpose of ferrying injured security personnel and other relief materials, which the Government of India duly compiled. And soon the telephones got buzzing in the Unified Command, and SP Krishnatombi acknowledged that they were now receiving a fresh supply of ammunition from the Central Security Forces.
Kudos to the state government for having managed to leak the last telephonic conversation with SP Krishnatombi and an unknown Cabinet minister to social media, proving that they are also active. Then the news filtered in that a contingent of the Indian Army’s Gorkha Regiment had moved into Moreh.
The town of Moreh, located on the Indo-Myanmar border, is a key international trading place between India and the rest of Southeast Asia, where crores of rupees of goods were transacted overnight before the Indo-Myanmar border trade agreements were signed in 1993 between P. Chidambaram, then India’s Commerce Minister, and his Myanmarese counterpart. Then came the announcement of the Look East policy by the Centre, first by the Congress Regime, then as a follow-up to the Act East Policy by the current BJP regime in Delhi.
The crucial fact is that it was the NSCN (I-M) who had first controlled the Moreh until they were ousted from the area by the Kuki National Army in 1992–93, and it fell into the laps of the Kuki swashbucklers. Now with the Asian Highway No. 2 running through Moreh and scopes of millions of dollars pumping through, it has become evident that the Kukis did not want anybody to share the loot, and the driveout Meiteis came into their agenda, which began first with attacking Meitei households, burning them, and also killing. But the second wave of attacks, which was a coordinated move across the international border, sealed the suspicion that the only stumbling block in their path of total and absolute control was the Manipur Police Commandos present at Moreh, hence the all-out frenzy of attacks, and mine, the Kukis, are now armed with Ack Ack, or anti-aircraft guns, which bellow out shells and not bullets. So much so that the chopper based at the Assam Rifles Post near Moreh could not take off for more than five hours ferrying the dead and the wounded. So apart from the Kuki-Meitei ethnic war, the repercussions on international trade also have to be taken into account, as the highway stretches all the way from Singapore up to Tehran.
I am not sure if the Kuki masterminds are aware of this dimension, and perhaps they are only thinking about the 'mullah' that Moreh would bring in. Abandoning Moreh to the Kuki Highwaymen would mean abandoning the Act East Policy, for which India may be answerable to ASEAN, even as the European Parliament has placed India, inter alia, Manipur, in its scanner first with the resolution passed in Paris last year while the Prime Minister was in France and also in the very recent meeting it held. The writer is a senior jou
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