Is Destroying of Bunkers Kuki Areas Justifiable Amidst Civil War?

Following the deadly attack by suspected Meitei insurgent groups that claimed the lives of two Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in Manipur’s Naransena, a joint operation conducted by a joint team of central and state forces has resulted in the destruction of bunkers of the Kuki village volunteers at Khoirentak area and the recovery of arms cache.

A joint team of security forces conducted a counter- insurgency operation (CIO) in the vicinity of Khoirentak area dominated by Kukis on Saturday morning.

It was reported that the operation, which began around 8:00 AM, led to the destruction of four bunkers and the seizure of four sophisticated weapons, four explosives (including hand grenades), 145 rounds of live ammunition, 197 empty bullet casings, 32 projectiles, a black walkie-talkie, and two Chinese hand grenades.

The Manipur Police’s bomb disposal squad safely detonated the explosives.

The CRPF camp in Naransena came under a barrage of attacks late Friday night, lasting from midnight until 2:15 AM on Saturday. Two CRPF personnel, including Sub-Inspector N. Sarkar (55) from Kokrajhar, Assam, were killed while two others sustained injuries in the assault.

After reports of attack on Central Security Forces, the Imphal based media houses were quick to jump to the conclusion that the attack was carried out by “Kuki militants”. There have been several misleading reports, even in mainstream media houses, that the attack was carried out by “Kuki militants”, leading to the destruction of village volunteers’ bunkers in Kuki areas, about 4 KM away from Naransena, Bishnupur district.

However, the misleading reports by several media houses have been debunked by Kuki Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) including the Kuki Inpi, Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and Committee On Tribal Unity (CoTU). Notably, several news outlets have rectified their mistake.

The Central Security Forces must have been adequately aware that “Kuki Militants” never attacked the Indian Army or CAPF since the signing of the SoO agreement with the Government of India. In contrast, many Indian soldiers have lost their lives in several deadly attacks carried out by Valley Based Insurgent Groups (VBIGs), the proscribed Meitei outfits. Such baseless accusations leveled against the Kukis is nothing but an effort to portray the Kukis as ‘Anti-National’ in the eyes of the central government. The Security Advisor Mr. Kuldiep Singh also did not mention any word about Kukis attacking central forces. It is strongly believed that various Intelligence agencies operating in the state would feed the factual information to Delhi.

During these 12 months of violence, the Kukis respected and regarded the central forces who are guarding the frontline areas. It is, however, the Meitei armed radical groups and their VBIGs who came into violent confrontation with central forces on various occasion.

Despite all this, it is astonishing to learn that Bunkers set up to provide protection from incessant Meitei attacks, such as bombings, artillery shelling and gunfire have been destroyed by the Central Forces in the aftermath of the attack.

Amidst the high scale violence and incessant attacks from the Meitei community, serious questions thus arised. Is destroying of Kuki village volunteer’s bunkers justifiable? Who would then bear the responsibility if any fatalities occur to the Kukis due to the absence of any protective structure?

Whenever any firing incident happened in buffer zone areas, the first and foremost duty of the Meiteis and their bias media houses is to lay blame on the Kukis without any supporting evidences.

The central forces have also fallen prey to the deceptive tactics of the Meitei government, blaming Kuki militants in the Naransena incident, leading to mindless destroying of bunkers of village volunteers’.

The central security forces should bear in mind that the Kukis’ lives and properties are also as valuable as that of their fellow citizens of the country, and they should protect them from the constant threats of the communal Meitei radical armed groups including the Meitei extremists.