Manipur Terrorists Break Earlier Records

Most of the panic-stricken migrant workers in Manipur shut themselves up at home on  June 25, 2008  as the state government stepped up vigil in areas where they live following the previous day's killing of four Hindi-speaking labourers -- Bali Ram and Dindayal, manual labourers, Chandan Kumar, an ice cream seller, and Mohammad Noor Ali, a hand-pump mechanic. In the first attack, gunmen kidnapped Kumar and Ali and shot them dead in the foothills of Natum in the afternoon. The second attack took place around 4pm. One of the injured, Ram Dari, told the police that two unknown gunmen had hijacked the truck the four of them were travelling in from Malom near Imphal airport and took them to a deserted village road at Heinoubok in Imphal West and shot two of them. Dharmender Shahni, a relative of Chandan asked " What will the killers gain? Manipur is also a part of India. Many Manipuris are staying in other states. Will killing one another do any good to the country?" Meanwhile, the director-general of police, Yumnam Joykumar Singh said, "We have taken steps to contain violence. I will not go into specific details." The police had an exchange of fire with militants who were coming in two vans at Tairenbikhok in Thoubal shortly after midnight. The rebels, however, escaped. At Pallel in Thoubal, the police found the body of a migrant worker identified as Narayan, 60, under a bridge.

In a state where alleged military excesses often make news, it is now the turn of militant’s excesses to break all past records. This has not only caused widespread public revulsion, but even led to demands by the local populace to the State Government to provide them with arms for defending themselves.
Yet another disturbing development is about terrorist groups targeting schools for extortion and inducing or kidnapping children to train them for joining their ranks. According to an ANI news report in early May, terrorists of KCP demanded money from a school at Keinou in Bishenpur district, 20 kms away from the State capital. When the demand was refused, a packet with two bombs was sent to the principal's office, creating panic among teachers and students. This was the second time a school had been targeted for extortion.  Last year terrorists had burnt a government school in Chandel  disitrict. Several children and shopkeepers of Keinou burnt their toy guns in a bornfire to express their anguish and appealed for peace, even as hundreds of children below 13 years of age marched holding placards: "Let's give up playing with toy-guns. Let's play football, wrestling, hockey etc."

Towards March-end, there were two dastardly attacks on innocent Manipuri people celebrating Thabal Chongba and Yaoshang (Holi). Thereafter, the government said Special Police Officers (SPOs) would be recruited in areas where the police could not penetrate. There have been many incidents over the past few decades of terrorist groups armed with superior automatic arms and explosives attacking posts where the police is armed with .303 rifles Lee Enfield bolt-action rifles, which are snatched from them. The Senior Citizens' Forum, Heirok, urged in a memorandum to the Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to abolish (SPOs) in their village and to absorb the 300 of them undergoing firearms training into the police or paramilitary forces since Heirok was earning the wrath of militants because of the SPOs. United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the Kanglei Yawol Kunna Lup (KYKL) and KCP had imposed a ban on the village for daring to recruit SPOs. Five activists who had mobilised the villagers for SPO recruitment were given death sentence in absentia.

The forum also highlighted the inability of government employees to attend office or of farmers and daily wage earners go to work. Unable to earn money, for them the government's arrangement to sell rice at Rs 11 a kg in fair price shops was meaningless. Manipur Food and Civil Supplies Minister Yungkham Erabot said there was an artificial shortage of essential commodities and price hike as militants imposed illegal taxes that led to a hike in transportation and handling charges. One kg of rice supplied by the government at Rs. 3.36 was being sold at Rs. 20. Terrorists have been preventing agents from lifting rice, sugar, kerosene, etc from Food Corporation godowns unless the extortion amounts are met.
The spurt in attacks on both migrants and locals as well as on educational institutions and public services is baffling Manipuri civil society, which is tired of violence. On May 19, inter-state bus services in Manipur were suspended in protest against terrorists' extortion demands. In the month of September 2007, drug stores in Imphal shut shop after militant groups sent in hefty extortion notes. The State Government's assurance notwithstanding, the shops remained closed almost for a month, and were eventually forced open by the State Police. Similarly, five insurance companies in the State shut down business for about a fortnight in May-June 2007 after extortion demands by unidentified outfits.

Manipur has one of the most comprehensive networks of terrorist extortion in the country, affecting almost every earning citizen in the State, even as the state and its agencies remain virtually paralysed – with the exception of the Army and Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs). But the counter-insurgency effort has done nothing to permanently diminish the intensity or expanse of extremist depredations. And this failure is attributed by experts to the terrorist groups’ nexus with political leadership.

South Asia Terrorism Portal's recent report stated that with 408 deaths in 2007, Manipur was the second most conflict ridden state in the northeast, behind Assam with 437 fatalities. Deaths have increased among all categories. While a 17 per cent increase has been recorded among the militants, the number of civilian and security forces (SFs) killed has increased by 56 and 43 per cent respectively.
Even this, however, does not reflect Manipur's dire predicament. Activities of about 10,000 cadres of 15 militant groups of varying sizes and character compound an endemic collapse of the administrative machinery, taking Manipur to the threshold of a failed 'state' within the Indian Union. Each of Manipur's nine Districts (four in the Valley and five in the Hills) has been affected by militant violence, severely impacting the limited local capacities for governance, justice administration, and provision of security to citizens. State Police sources indicate that while almost all the 59 Police Stations have been reporting militant violence, as many as 32 of them have been slotted in the 'high' violence category. SATPOR further elaborated that the vacuum in governance is both a consequence and cause of militancy in Manipur. The militants have carved out several 'liberated zones' within the State and also operate from neighbouring Myanmar's Sagaing Division, to carry out attacks against civilians, SF personnel and government servants. They run an extortion network across the State with impunity. The Myanmar connection is an indication of their involvement in drug trafficking which has been one of the main causes for the spread of AIDS in the region owing to sharing of syringes.

Pakistan's ISI has been active in stoking fires in India's North East for almost two decades, successfully converting classic insurgent groups to terrorism from its perch in Bangladesh. It now emerges that even China, smarting from India's support to Tibetans and its growing proximity to the US, may be playing or resuming a more active role in supporting North East separatists in conjunction with Pakistan, and also through Myanmar.
 

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies)