Imphal/Guwahati/New Delhi:

The Manipur Police have strongly reacted to what they called “immature” comments by the former Assam Rifles chief, who indicated the state force could be partisan amid the ethnic tension between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the Kuki tribes, who are dominant in southern Manipur’s hill districts and some other areas.

Senior officers of the Manipur Police in a press conference on Tuesday said the comments on the police by the former Assam Rifles (AR) chief also showed “a myopic mindset”.

The Manipur Police and the AR have exchanged indirect barbs, and their personnel have had heated exchanges over matters such as road blockades since ethnic clashes began in May 2023, but never in the manner of a formal press conference or a news interview.

Lieutenant General PC Nair (retired), the former Director General of the AR, in a nearly 50-minute interview to News9 on Monday touched on a wide range of issues endemic in the state bordering Myanmar. One of the points he highlighted was the difficulty in operating at a place where he claimed the police, too, were sharply divided on ethnic lines.

While Lt General Nair acknowledged that the AR had a lot of successes during anti-insurgency operations due to the police’s support, he said the police are this time divided on ethnic lines – between Meiteis and Kukis.

“… Let me be very honest in saying that there is no Manipur Police. It is ‘Meitei Police’. It is ‘Kuki Police’. That’s how they went into their respective areas and that is how they have been since then,” Lt General Nair told News9. “If they didn’t go, you don’t know what would have happened to their families. So it was in their own interest. I wouldn’t blame them. The situation was so volatile that they had no option, but to go back to their areas where they belonged,” he said.

The former AR chief added the divide is “more or less complete” in the police, particularly the constabulary, which was “one of the problems.”

“See, in any internal security situation, if you don’t have the local police by your side, it’s very difficult. You try and think of such a situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Surely, the successes the army and the Rashtriya Rifles have been getting are largely due to having the police by their side, which was not the case here [in Manipur],” Lt General Nair said.

READ | “Agenda-Driven Narratives”: Top Assam Rifles Officer On “Bias” Allegations In Manipur Ops

Responding to Lt General Nair, the Inspector General of Police (Operations) IK Muivah said the state force “strongly refutes” several points, particularly the ‘Meitei Police’ reference, made by the former AR chief.

“Manipur Police comprises people from all communities, whether from the mainland, Nagas, Kukis, Meiteis. So there is no such thing as the statement which he made. It is an immature statement, which shows a myopic mindset. We want to refute that,” Mr Muivah told reporters in the state capital Imphal.

“We don’t take such comments lightly. This is why we called this press conference in the first place. We are disappointed with him over his biased, immature comments. They are not true. Saying ‘Meitei Police’, ‘Kuki Police’ is a very harmful, false statement. We completely refute this immature and false statement,” Mr Muivah said.

Inspector General of Police (Administration) K Jayanta Singh said Lt General Nair’s comment is not likely the opinion of the Assam Rifles as a whole. “The immature comment coming from an experienced, retired officer seems to be his opinion. It doesn’t look like the official view of the Assam Rifles,” Mr Singh told reporters.

On the huge controversy over attacks by weaponized drones, Lt General Nair denied any drone dropped bombs in Manipur, though both Kuki and Meitei groups use drones for reconnaissance. He also rubbished the claim that rockets have been fired in Manipur. A senior citizen from the Meitei community was killed in what the police and residents said was a “rocket attack” on the lakeside town Moirang, 45 km from Imphal. A shrapnel had pierced through his head, the police said.

Mr Keishing, citing evidence which the police have collected from the areas where they claimed drone bombings have happened, refuted the former AR chief’s statement that no drone dropped bombs. The Manipur Police officer said they have been collecting evidence, and have picked up drones that were downed, debris and bomb residue.

“We have also collected other evidence for the forensics teams. We will most likely hand over this very important case to the National Investigation Agency so that it can be probed at the highest level,” Mr Keishing said, referring to the country’s top anti-terror investigator NIA.

WATCH | Video: Standoff Between Armoured Vehicle And Suspected Insurgents In Manipur’s Moreh

Lt General Nair, explaining the situation in neighbouring Myanmar where anti-junta insurgents have been using swarm drones to bomb military camps, pointed out the projectile that hit Moirang can only be a homemade weapon known as ‘pumpi gun’.

“Again, it’s not a rocket or a missile. It is a very crude kind of a weapon, called pumpi. It is just a barrel in which they put some ammunition and it is fired. But do you know most of the times the ammunition gets blasted in the barrel itself… The media plays it up as if it’s something very alarming… they’re not rockets, they’re not designed. Narratives are being built by many people,” Lt General Nair said.

The AR is under the administrative control of the Home Ministry and operational control of the army. It guards the 1,600-km-long Indo-Myanmar border, of which nearly 400 km is in Manipur, where it also functions as the primary counter-insurgency force making its task a dual-role one. There are some Border Security Force (BSF) battalions in Manipur, but they are not specifically tasked with guarding the Indo-Myanmar border.

Since May 2023, when ethnic clashes began in Manipur, the Assam Rifles have been criticised by both the Meitei community and the Kuki tribes for allegedly being biased, Lt General Nair said, adding this clearly shows the force has been neutral.

The army had invited a team of the Editors Guild of India (EGI) to Manipur to analyse the local media’s coverage of the Manipur crisis, which was seen as partisan and biased towards the Meiteis. The editors’ body led by journalist Seema Mustafa had revealed this to the Supreme Court in September last year, after two Manipur residents filed police cases against the EGI for allegedly doing a hit job on the Meitei community, largely using information provided by groups of the Kuki tribes. The Supreme Court later gave relief to the EGI.

READ | Two Assam Rifles Battalions From Manipur To Be Deployed In Jammu And Kashmir

Another controversy erupted when the investigative news website The Reporters Collective (TRC) shared with the public its assessment of what it claimed was a PowerPoint presentation by AR officers in Manipur. The report, published in Al Jazeera on April 15, put a part of the blame for the Manipur crisis on Chief Minister N Biren Singh’s “political authoritarianism and ambition”. The AR later told Al Jazeera the content of the report was not the official viewpoint of the force, and that no such presentation had been made by the AR.

The All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU), a registered body formed in 1974, in a statement today refuted Lt General Nair’s comments that the local media was partisan. “When speaking to national media, we wish the [Lt] General also spoke to locals for their inputs including the media and not rely only on one side,” it said.

The AMWJU also said the former AR chief’s statement that weaponized drones were not used were “not borne by facts”. “… There are many eyewitnesses who saw the release of the bombs by drones, including a journalist of Impact TV who was also injured by shrapnel on his hand and foot in Koutruk,” the AMJU said, referring to the incident on September 8.

READ | Manipur Oil Leak Accident Or Sabotage? Some Unanswered Questions

Two battalions of the Assam Rifles have been shifted out of Manipur for deployment in Jammu and Kashmir. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has been moved to the areas where these two battalions had guarded, including the Kuki-dominant Churachandpur. The Kuki tribes have fiercely protested against the move, and highlighted their preference for the AR, amid a huge trust-deficit with the government led by Biren Singh, who belongs to the Meitei community.

There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the Meitei-dominated valley. The clashes between the Meitei community and the nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.

Imphal/Guwahati/New Delhi:

The Assam Rifles has maintained a neutral stance since ethnic violence began in Manipur in May 2023, the dual-role force’s Director General Lieutenant General PC Nair has said, and termed as “stupid reports” allegations that the Assam Rifles has been “favouring one community and not the other”.

Lt General Nair said to call the Assam Rifles (AR) biased towards a particular community is “nothing but rumours” spread by some people with a hidden agenda.

“… From the first day, the Assam Rifle has maintained a neutral stand [in Manipur]. All these narratives that have been coming are agenda-driven. It makes me laugh when I read some of these stupid reports saying the Assam Rifles is favouring one community, not favouring the other. These are nothing but rumours, falsehoods, preposterous,” Lt General Nair told news agency ANI.

“There is no background to this [allegation] and I can substantiate it with statistics… To call us being biased towards a particular community is wrong,” he said.

The AR is under the administrative control of the Home Ministry and operational control of the army. It guards the 1,600-km-long Indo-Myanmar border, of which nearly 400 km is in Manipur, where it also functions as the primary counter-insurgency force making its task a dual-role one. There are some Border Security Force (BSF) battalions in Manipur, but they are not specifically tasked with guarding the Indo-Myanmar border.

Lt General Nair’s comment also comes days after former BSF Additional Director General (ADG) PK Mishra told NEWS9 channel that a massive failure of command and control coordination in Manipur has made central forces’ intervention ineffective in Manipur, where the valley-dominant Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, have been fighting since May 2023.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the nearly two dozen tribes that share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.

The former BSF ADG who retired after 40 years in the service had said “one paramilitary force should be shifted out of Manipur” to stabilise the state. “I can tell you it involves shifting of – I repeat very strongly – shifting of one paramilitary force from Manipur. Definitely it will come to an end… One force has to go from there. They have been there for so many years…” Mr Mishra told NEWS9.

Referring to purported videos on social media that allegedly shows the AR in a bad light during operations in Manipur, Lt General Nair said most of them are doctored videos made by people with hidden agenda to create trouble.

“… If videos are going around, these are doctored videos. I can tell you I have about 30 to 40 videos which have been circulating. Don’t even belong to the northeast. They are from Myanmar, they are from other places. Some of them are from the Rohingya region. But some people who have a hidden agenda to create trouble here are doctoring that and showing them as security forces acting against people,” Lt General Nair said.

“Yes, there have been certain other instances where videos of Manipur have been shown. But among those videos also, it is only part of the incident. Let’s say an incident has happened for about five to 10 minutes. Let’s say there are people who have been stopped, and the Assam Rifles is trying to stop them or whatever. In these videos that are being propagated, they only show part clippings which make the story very different

” Unless you see the entire video, unless you see the complete facts, you will tend to get carried away by what is coming. And that is precisely what is happening. Part of the story, part of the photograph, and part of the videos are what are being made and shown to drive a certain agenda which is wrong…” Lt General Nair said.

#WATCH | Shillong: On the Manipur situation, Assam Rifles Director General Lieutenant General PC Nair says, “…If videos are going around, these are doctored videos. I can tell you I have about 30 to 40 videos which have been circulating. Don’t even belong to the northeast. They… https://t.co/6ATK7MYQWupic.twitter.com/4bTVyYk7En

— ANI (@ANI) July 27, 2024

In January this year, videos of a tense stand-off between the AR and a group of insurgents in Manipur’s border town Moreh had emerged on social media, raising questions over how they stopped the security forces from moving around in the town just a stone’s throw away from Myanmar.

The soldiers inside an armoured vehicle were heard shouting warnings at the insurgents blocking their way. The insurgents carried American-origin M series assault rifles and anti-armour recoilless guns, which they managed to set up on the road in front of the armoured vehicle. Sources said ‘village defence volunteers’ across Manipur carry only licenced single-barrelled guns for self protection.

Another video of an AR truck blocking the gate of a police station in Manipur, with a police commando arguing with AR soldiers over allegedly not allowing the police to drive out, had gone viral last year.

Two dozen Kuki-Zo insurgent groups that have signed the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement with the centre and the state government are housed in designated camps, under the watch of the security forces including the AR.

Sources said the Manipur government’s repeated allegations that some signatories of the SoO agreement have been violating ground rules does not reflect well on the main force that is deployed in Manipur’s hill and border areas.

The AR had to vacate the Kangla Fort in the heart of the state capital Imphal in 2004 following massive protests after the mutilated body of a 32-year-old Meitei woman, Thangjam Manorama Devi, was found. She was taken away by AR soldiers a day before. The Assam Rifles at that time had said she was an informer of the Meitei insurgent group People’s Liberation Army, and she was killed in firing while she was trying to escape.

The Manipur Police, too, face allegations of bias as the Kuki tribes see them as a force comprising only people from the Meitei community, though many senior police officers belong to the Kuki tribes. Police commandos have been accused by Kuki MLAs and civil society organisations of working with Meitei armed groups to target Kuki areas.

The Kuki tribes have shared many purported visuals on social media alleging that members of Meitei armed groups wearing khaki uniforms have embedded themselves with police commando teams to attack Kuki villages. The Centre and the state government in November 2023 signed a ceasefire deal with the Meitei outfit United National Liberation Front (Pambei). The Kuki tribes have alleged UNLF(P) members have been fighting alongside the police. The Manipur Police have refuted all the allegations.

Over 220 have died in the ethnic violence, and nearly 50,000 have been internally displaced.