The matter has been fortunately resolved, but the people of Manipur particularly voluntary organisations and the underground outfits need to seriously study why and how the Kuki Revolutionary Army issued the death threat against the Imphal Free Press.

For those in the dark, we take this opportunity to recall the turn of the events that led to the issuance of the threat.

After police commandos gunned down two youths at Langol Laimanai and dubbed them as KRA cadres, the KRA issued a press release which refuted the claim of the police.

And according to the outfit, the press release was addressed only to Sumkawn and The Sangai Express.

However things did not go as planned, as a caller who identified himself as one Samuel rang up an employees of the Imphal Free Press and through the phone delivered a message, in which the KRA offered revolutionary salutes to the two slain youths.

The contradiction is palpable, for in a statement issued to two newspaper establishments the KRA had refuted the police report that the two youths were KRA cadres while in the message relayed through the phone, the outfit purportedly offered revolutionary salutes to them.

In the first place, we believe that such an ugly stand off would not have come about if only voluntary organisations and underground outfits respect the stand of the media that no news item delivered over the phone will be entertained.

Decisions to this effect have been taken many times and published in all the State dailies.

There is also a lesson for the KRA to learn from this episode for the outfit is also not free from the guilt of conveying messages over the phone and many a times our explanation that we do not entertain messages over the phone have not gone down well with many armed outfits.

It is not only the KRA but a number of other underground outfits, which do not hesitate to pass on sensitive information over the phone and expect the newspaper establishments to publish them.

Efforts to explain the stand of the media just do not go down well with the supposedly armed cadres giving the phone call.

Mark our words, if underground organisations do not accept the fact that issuing messages over the phone can prove counter productive, then the episode that was just witnessed between the Imphal Free Press and the KRA will not be the last.

There are many other parties which will not hesitate to take the name of an outfit and pass it through the phone to the newspaper houses and the best way to tackle this is for the armed outfits to accept that such policy of dictating news over the phone can only work to their detriment in the long run.

Explanation such as "we really do not know whether you belong to the outfit which you claim to represent" is always cut short by subtle threats and intimidation.

The time now calls for the leaders of all the underground outfits to hammer home the point that there are certain norms and procedures that need to be followed if a news item related to them is to be published.

The culture of reaching for the nearest telephone and ringing up a newspaper house to get a news item published is nothing but fishing in troubled waters.