[ad_1]
After Thursday’s violence in Manipur, which saw two weeks of relative peace in between, the security establishment has reclassified troop deployments in the fringe areas of the Imphal Valley. It was now decided to give responsibility for certain areas to a single force instead of deploying columns of different forces to different places in the region.
Due to the frequent acts of violence in these basins where the valley meets the hills, the security establishment in Manipur decided to create buffer zones in these areas so that the people of the valley could be prevented from heading towards the hills and vice versa. However, Thursday’s incident at the Imphal West-Kang Bokpe border, which led to at least two civilian deaths and some arson incidents in the previous days, exposed the inadequacy of the security arrangements.
Among the reasons analyzed by the security establishment are the lack of proper coordination between the various forces and the vastness of the terrain that must be covered. While the latter had no great solution until more troops were injected, to solve the problem of co-ordination it was decided to hand over the responsibility of an entire district or more, depending on the size of that force present in Manipur, to a single force.
This will strengthen the command and control structure as well as facilitate smooth logistics management. Suppose that if Bishnupur and Churachandpur districts were given to the British security forces, he alone would be responsible for the lapses and thus would remain swift. At the same time, it would be easier for commanders to place and manage forces on the ground since there would be a single command structure for the entire region. “At the moment, a lot of effort is being made to coordinate alone,” said a senior official.
Currently, there are approximately 40,000 Central Force personnel in Manipur. These include Assam Rifles, Indian Army, BSF, CRPF, SSB and ITBP. At any fringe in a region, a mixture of all these forces is currently being deployed. For example, if the army is guarding a peripheral area at Moirang, just a few kilometers from Torbung, then Assam Rifles. Between the deployment of both BSF and CRPF can be seen.
“Killings only happen when one side goes to the other with the intent of arson. The Hraothel incident in which two Meitei civilians were killed occurred on Thursday when Kukis took revenge on a group of Meitei who tried to burn down their homes. The Meitei act itself is the result of some Kukis trying to burn Meitei homes in Another area: “It’s an escalating cycle that we’re trying to break by maintaining a strong buffer zone,” said another officer.
Sources in the security establishment said the army, which was forced by a mob to release 12 Kangli Yaul Kanna Lop militants it arrested earlier this week in Itham village in Imphal East district, did not take the Manipur DGP for a loop before carrying out the operation.
This does not mean that the Manipur police would have guaranteed that they would not be released. The division within the force is a reality. But perhaps the operation could have been planned differently. “Overall, better coordination between forces appears to be easier said than done,” said an Interior Ministry official.
[ad_2]
