Did Assam Rifles get caught in crossfire of vested interests?

Much before the sudden decision of the Manipur government to relieve Assam Rifles from some of their present areas of deployment and replace them with more ‘trustworthy’ central forces happened, an arms standoff between the Manipur state police and the Assam Rifles captured on video was doing the rounds in social media.

A day before the government order on Assam Rifles was notified; the force announced that drugs worth more than Rs 1,610 crore have been seized between July 2022 and July this year in Manipur.

In the financial years 2021-22 and 2020-21, it seized drugs worth Rs 850 crore and Rs 1,200 crore, respectively.

Assam Rifles personnel, based at Moirang Lamkhai checkpoint in Manipur’s Bishnupur, where fresh violence erupted last week, were withdrawn and substituted by the CRPF and the state police, a notification said.

The withdrawal of Assam Rifles comes at a time when several groups of women in valley districts launched a demonstration on Monday, demanding the removal of the paramilitary force from the ethnic strife-torn northeastern state.

Also, in a recent memorandum to the PM, forty MLAs from Manipur stated their displeasure on the conduct of the forces, particularly in firing zones.

Though drug seizure related arrests are the responsibility of the NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau) and the state police, the routes, conduits, and funding for terrorism, weapons, and drugs are common at times.

Hence, in the process of catching terrorists, Assam Rifles ends up catching drug smugglers, who are handed over to state police As per government data, during 2022-23, Manipur Police registered 620 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, leading to 724 arrests, of which 474 people are in judicial custody and 250 were released on bail.

Further, since 2017, 2,518 people have been arrested in drug-related cases, according to Manipur Police records. Of them, 873 belong to the Kuki-Chin community and 381 to the Meitei community, and 1,083 are Muslims among others, records tell. Drug processing and transportation along foot tracks across the Myanmar border are known menaces.

There has been large-scale foreign infiltration with drugs, arms, and ammunition into the state, the memorandum by forty MLAs to the PM had stated. Indo-Myanmar border fencing as a way to stop infiltration stands as a pilot project.

While Manipur, as a state, calls for such fencing, it is crucial to recognise that re-evaluating the ‘Free Movement Regime’ is not feasible.

The Free Movement Regime (FMR) permits tribes residing along either side of the border to journey up to 16 kilometres within the other country’s territory, without requiring a visa.

The stress should be on the expansion of administration and infrastructure to reach out to remote areas so that horticulture and agriculture can reduce reliance on poppy cultivation.

The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an umbrella body of several Imphal-based civil society organisations, has been demanding that the central government should enforce the detection and detention of illegal migrants and that war should be declared on drugs.

The COCOMI has been alleging that many Kukis are illegal migrants from north-western Myanmar and that many Kuki villagers cultivate poppies in hillside farms, though the allegations are yet to be proven.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum clarified that only a section of the Kuki community is involved in poppy cultivation, and not all Kukis are narco-terrorists.

Sociologists and economists have opined that in most cases those engaged in poppy cultivation often do so out of necessity and as a means of livelihood. It is essential to provide alternative employment opportunities and empower communities to pursue sustainable livelihoods.

Did the Assam Rifles stir the hornet’s nest by making such huge drug seizures, particularly in a region that has for decades thrived on drugs, narco-terrorism, and the roles played by unscrupulous politicians irrespective of party lines who have used this nexus for their vested interest?