Lt Gen PC Nair (seated in centre facing camera) during his interaction with various community leaders in Moreh, Manipur. (India Sentinels photo via special arrangement.)
Shillong/Imphal: The director general of Assam Rifles, Lieutenant General Pradeep Chandran Nair, visited the violence-hit Moreh town in Manipur. Moreh, which is on the Myanmar border, recently saw a sharp rise in violence and attacks on security forces.
During his visit to the town, Lt Gen Nair was briefed by the Assam Rifles commander of 26 Sector, Brigadier Ved Pal Yadav, on the present security situation.
Lt Gen Nair also met members of the various civil society organizations. The civil society leaders who attended the meeting with the DG AR were from the Hill Tribe Council, Kuki Students Organization, Kuki Women’s Union, Human Rights Moreh, Kuki Inpi Tengnoupal, Tamil Sangam, Gorkha Samaj Samiti, and Manipur Muslims Council.
Moreh is on the India-Myanmar border on the Indian side in Manipur. It is very different from other towns in the state because of its cosmopolitan nature. However, the town has been witnessing increased violence since the last week of December last year.
In a news release, the Assam Rifles said Lt Gen Nair listened patiently to the issues being faced by all the groups. In his interaction with them, he underscored the diversity of Moreh where people from the Kuki, Meitei, Naga, Tamil, Pangal, Gorkha, Sikh, and other communities have been residing for decades in peace and harmony.
He noted that the past eight months of the ethnic strife in the state and the previous two years of the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected the lives of the people, especially the children and youth. He stressed that shunning violence is the only way forward because the future of the youth and children is at stake.
The Assam Rifles chief also assured the various community leaders that all their grievances will be heard and analysed, but it is for the people of Moreh, particularly the women, to come forward and work actively towards restoration of peace.
He also urged all the various groups who attended the meeting to tell those moving around with weapons that the central security forces shall “retaliate in an appropriate manner” if provoked or fired upon.
He said it is in everybody’s interest to restore peace, therefore everyone’s responsibility to work towards it. The Assam Rifles, he said, shall always live up to the sobriquet of “Friends of the Northeast” even in the most challenging circumstances.
