Call to NSCN (IM) leadership to wake up : Terrorising Ukhrul folks
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 17 2017 -

No strong enough words to condemn the dastardly killing of two young men at Ukhrul allegedly by cadres of the NSCN (IM) and don’t be surprised if the case dies a natural death.

Intimidation, threat, force are some tactics used by all armed groups and if the killers are from the NSCN (IM) then there is no reason to believe that the outfit too will not follow this method.

Brow beat the common people into quiet submission and carry on with their agenda.

God knows why the first lad was killed for obviously no one can just believe the words of the cadres, who acted as policeman, judge and executioner.

The killing of the second youth is yet another testimony that the killers, far from repenting what they had done, were more than ready to silence any voice of dissent against the excesses of beating someone to death.

Nothing can be more macabre than this and the leadership of the NSCN (IM) should not take this lying down.

It is downright a case of gross human rights violation with their cadres targeting the common citizens.

Something against which the NSCN (IM) had for long been accusing the Indian army of doing.

Will be interesting to see how the top leadership of the outfit tackles this latest case.

This very incident should underline the fact that the ceasefire is nothing much more than stopping the skirmishes between cadres of the outfit and the soldiers of the Indian army.

In more than one way this can be taken to mean that while the guns may have gone silent, vis-a-vis the security personnel, this does not necessarily mean that the guns will go silent when cadres of the outfit have to contend with the civil population, the very set of people who they claim to represent.

What happened at Ukhrul had nothing to do with revolution. It was plain goondaism, an act of terrorising the public.

True the cease fire between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) does not officially cover the territory of Manipur, but everyone knows the ground reality.

What happened at Ukhrul is also a damning testimony of how cadres of an outfit which is engaged in a peace process with the Government of India, freely move around with arms and impose their writs and diktats on the people.

This is something which the collective leadership of the NSCN (IM) should take note of and not merely brush under the carpet.

All armed groups, especially those which claim that they are revolutionaries should not lose sight of the fact that they are fishes and the public make up the water.

To instil this in their mind, discipline is a must and what happened at Ukhrul should more than underline the point that discipline is something far from the consciousness of some of their cadres.

A leadership which refuses to rein in the erring cadres and an undisciplined lot who make up the lower rung of the outfit is the perfect recipe to make a disaster of all the sacrifices of the senior members of the outfit.

What happened at Ukhrul is something which should not and cannot be condoned, for ultimately the NSCN (IM) first took up the guns and later sat for the political negotiations on behalf of the people and the people include the two who were dastardly killed by suspected NSCN (IM) cadres.