Thadou students warn intense agitation

IMPHAL | Sept 19

Thadou Students’ Association (TSA) has strongly condemned the recent attack on the United Tribal Liberation Front (UTLA) Peniel camp by heavily armed miscreants on September 17 where three persons, including an innocent pregnant woman were killed.

A release signed by secretary joint of TSA, Thangtinlen Haokip said that the association has submitted a memorandum in this regard to the chief minister, N. Biren Singh yesterday but no positive response has been made till date.

Stating that the association hold the government as solely responsible for the incident, it demanded the government to provide ex-gratia and a government job each to the next of kin of the three deceased and to punish the culprits involved and to initiate an inquiry into the incident.

It further demanded suspension or transfer of superintendent of police, Jirbam and to provide full rehabilitation, safety and protection to all UTLA/UTLF cadres and their families.If the governments fails to fulfil the said demands within 24 hours, TSA will launched an intense agitation and the dead bodies will not be taken, it added.

It said, “Acting on good faith and in full confidence with the government, UTLA/UTLF came forward to join the mainstream, although there was an element of risk to their lives. UTLA/UTLF had surrendered to the government of India and government of Manipur on July 17, 2013 and signed a MoU”.

However, the government has neglected UTLA/UTLF and not taken up any significant steps to rehabilitate and protect them as agreed in the MoU, it said adding that, instead, a team of state police led by superintendent of police, Jiribam raided UTLA/UTLF peace camp and seized all the arms and ammunition issued by the government for self-defence on 27 July this year, dumping them like a rubbish to fall prey to some armed groups or miscreants as it has happened.

The release said that as per point 2 of the MoU, security forces comprising of Army, Para military forces and state police are not supposed to launch any operations against UTLA/UTLF while point 10 envisages that security of the settlement village, that is, Peniel camp, is the state government’s responsibility.

While point 11 states that the security forces shall visit the settlement village from time to time, it added.

The government evidently have not honoured these and other points of the MoU, it alleged.

Stating that UTLA/UTLF is no longer an underground group, it said that if any of the cadres were found involved in unlawful activities like extortion, kidnapping, possessing unauthorised arms etc. then he or she should be dealt as per law of the land (as stated in the MoU).

It further said that if the security forces are claiming that UTLA/UTLF cadres were involved in unlawful activities, the association would like to question if they have been dealt with as per the law or got them attacked and killed by some other armed people.

As stated in the objective of the surrender and rehabilitation scheme, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the militants who have surrendered do not find it attractive to join militancy again, it said. It further questioned, what has the government done with UTLA/UTLF who has been caught in a difficult situation between moving forward or being forced to go back underground due to the non-committal and indifferent attitude of the government authority.