Guwahati: The director general of Assam Rifles, Lieutenant General PC Nair, on Saturday met Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, to discuss the prevailing security scenario, in the violence-hit state.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Assam Rifles stated, “DG Assam Rifles Lt Gen PC Nair on August 12 met Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh to discuss the security situation and issues pertaining to the Assam Rifles in Manipur.”
The meeting comes amid allegations by the Manipur BJP MLAs, and various Meitei civil society organizations, that the Assam Rifles were biased towards one community of the state.
The meeting comes days after Indian Army’s Eastern Command Army Commander Lt Gen Rana Pratap Kalita visited the state for a couple of days to discuss Manipur’s situation with Chief Minister Singh and state security advisor Kuldiep Singh.
The Assam Rifles have been stationed in the buffer zones between the Meitei and Kuki-Zomi dominated areas of Manipur ever since ethnic-clashes erupted between both these communities.
The Assam Rifles have been accused of being partisan, thus facing the ire of the valley-dominated Meitei community, with a few organizations even demanding its removal from the state.
The Assam Rifles was recently involved in a row when its vehicles blocked the Manipur police personnel at the Meitei dominated Bishnupur district and crossed over to a Kuki-Zomi-dominated area.
The Manipur police later claimed that they were pursuing suspected Kuki militants who had killed three Meitei men and the action of the Assam Rifles allowed them to flee. The Manipur police later filed an FIR against the Assam Rifles.
There were a total of 20 battalions of Assam Rifles units stationed in Manipur, with the primary mandate of counter-insurgency and border guarding.
However, in the wake of the eruption of ethnic-clashes in the state on May 3, two more battalions were requisitioned and their deployment was readjusted to create a gap between territories dominated by both the communities involved in the conflict.
The three month long ethnic clashes have claimed the lives of at least160 people. Moreover, several hundred others have been left injured and thousands of people have been rendered homeless, ever since ethnic clashes between the Meitei and the Kuki-Zomi community broke out after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised in the hill districts to protest against the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.
Security forces including the Manipur police, Indian Army and personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have been keeping a tight vigil to prevent recurrence of any untoward incident.
Meanwhile, there have been no reports of large-scale violence in the state in the past 48 hours.