IMPHAL, Sept 4: Taragi Cheisu (TC), the senior citizens and intellectuals group of Manipur, strongly condemned and viewed the recent escalation of violence as a deliberate act to perpetuate the conflict situation in Manipur that erupted on May 3, 2023.
“No right thinking community would be hesitant to condemn the latest rounds of drone propelled bomb attacks on Koutruk – a foothill village, Imphal West and several other villages on September 1, 2024 at 2 pm,” it said on Tuesday.
The group offered its “sincere condolences” to the bereaved families and extended collective prayers for the speedy and full recovery of those injured in the attacks.
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The TC said it has become self-revealing that the highly trained Kuki-Chin armed groups are apparently on a spree of re-grouping themselves to take advantage of the lesser presence of state machinery in the interior areas of Manipur since the outbreak of the present conflict.
The de facto presence of Kuki armed groups in the hills surrounding the valley has enabled them to continue with their surreptitious plans and adopt methods of impunity by meticulously designing to attack vulnerable Meitei villages located in the foothills so as to keep their exclusive pan-ethnic pot boiling, it further said.
Every time there was a hint of reconciliation amongst the civilians – may it be in Pallel or Jiribam or Moreh, the Kuki supremacist would meticulously unleash violence to sabotage it, the TC alleged.
The latest drone-propelled bomb attacks at various fronts of the Imphal valley is just another episodic design to somehow arouse violent Kuki sentiment through its long-drawn-out victim-playing false narratives, the TC added.
The group then said the time has come for the collective ownership of the sufferings faced by the unarmed villagers whose habitats are uprooted in a systematic way by the persistent violent attacks of the Kuki-Chin armed groups.
The TC then said it was alarmed by the increasing use of highly sophisticated weapon systems in the attacks by Kuki-Chin groups. “We are equally concerned with the police and other security establishments for having failed to rise up to the occasion to monitor, detect and deny the mobilisations of these advanced weapons. It is a matter of utter disbelief that the central security forces continue to be indifferent despite their robust presence in the state to contain the law-breaking spree of the Kuki-Chin groups armed groups who evidently work hand in glove with the so-called Kuki civil society groups,” it also said.
The TC then questioned the evident complicity on the part of the central security forces to deploy drone jammers that are known to be in their possession. “It becomes pertinent to question the probity of the central security forces which are operating in the area for having allowed these attacks to happen. The reported disruption of the state police by central security forces from entering the area from where the attacks were launched by Kuki armed groups is unacceptable. We appeal to those involved in negotiation with the Suspension of Operation (SoO) groups to emphasise that continued perpetration of such a dastardly act will not further their goals, and should be answerable to any further orchestration of violence in the state,” the TC also said.
Moreover, any call to disintegrate Manipur must be viewed as untenable given the historical and legal personality of Manipur state for it had international treaty-making power, an autonomous constitutional process and an elected government which makes it notably distinct from the rest of the erstwhile princely states in India, it added.
The TC then said concerned civil society organisations, pressure groups and the general public must continue to exercise extraordinary caution to not fall prey to war-mongering antics and deliberate acts of provocation of the Kuki Chin groups. (NNN)
