Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, several prominent organisations including the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an apex body of the Meitei community, on Tuesday condemned the suspected militants’ attacks using drones and other sophisticated weapons on civilians.
Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO), however, strongly denied the use of drones in the recent “militant” attacks.
The Chief Minister said that the state government takes such unprovoked assaults with utmost seriousness and would respond decisively to combat these forms of terrorism targeting the indigenous population.
Singh, who also holds the Home portfolio, said dropping bombs on civilian populations and security forces using drones is an act of terrorism and such cowardly acts must be condemned by all concerned in the strongest terms.
“We denounce all forms of violence, and the people of Manipur shall unite against hate, division, and separatism,” he told the media.
The Chief Minister’s and other organisations’ reactions followed several attacks using drone bombs and sophisticated weapons in different villages in Imphal West and Imphal East districts on Sunday and Monday killing two persons, including a woman, and injuries to 14 others including women and police personnel.
The Manipur Home Department earlier in a statement said that the state government has learnt about the incidents of attacks by suspected Kuki militants on unarmed villagers using drones, bombs and many sophisticated weapons.
Meanwhile, an official of the Home Department said that the Manipur government constituted a high-level 5-member committee to examine the use of high-tech drones to attack the peripheral areas by Kuki militants.
The high-level committee will be chaired by Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Ashutosh Kumar Sinha.
“The decision to constitute this high-level committee is taken after the recent escalation in violence in peripheral areas. In the recent past suspected Kuki militants repeatedly attacked adjoining villages by using high-tech drones destroying life and properties in Koutruk, Senjam Chirag among other villages in Imphal East and Imphal West districts,” the official said.
The COCOMI in a statement said that aerial bombing using drones in Manipur by Kuki militants is a serious war crime covering up barbaric attacks using ambulances by Kuki people is inhumane and unethical.
It claimed that the armed immigrant Kuki groups used an ambulance to infiltrate Meetei villages under the guise of essential emergency services, leading to the killing of a 31-year-old woman and the injuring of her daughter and nine other village volunteers in Koutruk village in Imphal West District, on Sunday.
“The ambulance was confirmed to have come from the Leimakhong area, which houses one of the largest army camps. The Kuki narco-terrorists have grossly violated and misused the sanctity of a humanitarian service vehicle, committing an inhumane crime that reflects their lack of moral and ethical integrity.
Shockingly, a woman in the background was heard appreciating these barbaric forces and celebrating the death of the young mother and the injury of her minor child,” the statement alleged.
The KSO in a statement said that the drone was used recently to bomb the Kuki areas but fortunately, the Kuki Village Volunteers who were patrolling the surroundings near buffer zones shot down the drone which was flying under the air space of the Kuki hills and handed over the drone to security agencies.
“Furthermore, claims that members of the Kuki National Front received specialised drone attack training in Myanmar need to be corroborated with reliable sources. It is important to verify such information through independent and credible reports rather than relying on unconfirmed allegations,” the statement said.
Former Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader O Ibobi Singh criticised the Central government and expressed his anguish asking why the central government remained silent on the use of drones in militant attacks that left two persons dead and many others injured in villages of Imphal West and Imphal East districts.
“If bombs are dropped by the militants with the help of drones, it is a question of national security since the Raj Bhavan, the chief minister’s bungalow and other important installations might not be safe,” Singh told the media.