Back as Chairman of Unified Command Road trip via Kangpokpi
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Back as Chairman of the Unified Command and it is only right that Manipur expects Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand to study and see if he can take the travel by road, first to Jiribam and then to Senapati via Kangpokpi, exercise further. The first such visit by the leader of the people after Manipur went up in flames on May 3, 2023 and this is precisely the reason why his visit to Senapati via Kangpokpi has grabbed eyeballs. The point of interest is obviously the ‘via Kangpokpi’ road trip and it should not be lost on the Chief Minister and his loyalists that Manipur would certainly be watching to see how he takes this forward. It also remains that the Chief Minister still has to ensure that justice is delivered in the bomb attack case of Tronglaobi in Bishnupur district and it does not need to be elaborated here that the Senapati trip was undertaken even as Imphal and the valley districts were still up in protest against the bomb attack. Manipur will not forget the splinter riddled remains of the two young children, one a 5 year old toddler and the other a 5 month old infant. A sure indication that the arrest of three UKNA cadres, just a day after the tough ‘dead or alive’ proclamation of the Chief Minister, has failed to cut ice with the people, a people whose sensibilities have been benumbed time and again since the evening of May 3, 2023. So it is that while Manipur waits to see how the NIA proceeds with the investigation of the Tronglaobi case, it has to also see how the Chief Minister takes his road travel to Senapati via Kangpokpi further. To keep things in perspective, the Senapati visit via Kangpokpi need to be seen and understood as an extension of the visit to a relief centre at Litan which houses Kuki inmates, before Khemchand was named the Chief Minister of Manipur. Next came the visit to Jiribam first by helicopter, during which he interacted with displaced Hmar folks as well as Meitei people and followed it by yet another trip to the border town, this time by road. The efforts being made to usher in a semblance of normalcy or take Manipur to the path of normalcy can be understood and needs to be appreciated, but much more needs to be done. Will the road trip to Senapati by road via Kangpokpi open the highway for everyone ? This is a question which would be uppermost in the minds of every Meitei at the moment. Only time will tell, but at the same time, the Chief Minister should also not forget that even as the Imphal-Dimapur line via Kangpokpi remains closed to the Meiteis, the Imphal-Ukhrul line has also remained off limits to the Tangkhul people since the evening of March 12. Ideally the road visit to Senapati via Kangpokpi should be followed by a road visit to Ukhrul district headquarters via Litan ! Such a step can go some way in loosening the stranglehold on a route as important as the Imphal-Ukhrul road. Churachandpur and Moreh are two other places which must also be kept on the watchlist or waitlist of the Chief Minister.
Normalcy as understood will take time. This is a given, but what is important is to ensure that no mindless violence erupts even as the Government explores ways and means to break the ice. This is where it becomes more and more important to go back to the announcement by the Governor to all to surrender illegal arms. The arms surrendered in Imphal were given the due publicity and is something which have been recorded. What however is not very clear is on the arms surrendered in the hills particularly at Kangpokpi, Churachandpur and Moreh. When was the last time that the designated camps of the SoO outfits were inspected ? Is the Government keeping a tab on the number of arms which are being kept at these designated camps ? The last time Manipur or the media heard of the SoO camps being inspected was in the early days of the violence, sometime in 2023. It was the chief of the Unified Command who had given the information back then, and the question is why the silence now ? It is going to be three years since violence erupted in all its ugliness and till today the Centre has not given any information on the people seen marching towards Torbung brandishing guns. Why the silence ?
Normalcy as understood will take time. This is a given, but what is important is to ensure that no mindless violence erupts even as the Government explores ways and means to break the ice. This is where it becomes more and more important to go back to the announcement by the Governor to all to surrender illegal arms. The arms surrendered in Imphal were given the due publicity and is something which have been recorded. What however is not very clear is on the arms surrendered in the hills particularly at Kangpokpi, Churachandpur and Moreh. When was the last time that the designated camps of the SoO outfits were inspected ? Is the Government keeping a tab on the number of arms which are being kept at these designated camps ? The last time Manipur or the media heard of the SoO camps being inspected was in the early days of the violence, sometime in 2023. It was the chief of the Unified Command who had given the information back then, and the question is why the silence now ? It is going to be three years since violence erupted in all its ugliness and till today the Centre has not given any information on the people seen marching towards Torbung brandishing guns. Why the silence ?