March 31 timeframe for resettlement From December to now March

Another extension. Par for the course, but look deeper and this somewhat boils down to the PR regime admitting that they have fallen short of the earlier assurance that the Internally Displaced Persons would be resettled by December of 2025. A sort of an admission that perhaps former Chief Secretary PK Singh bit off more than he could chew or a case of the present lot, manning the PR regime, unable to do anything effective at the ground level ? The Government should acknowledge its failure and not try to take comfort in the line, ‘10,000 IDPs coming from 2,200 family units’ have been resettled by December, 2025 for the fact stands that even after nearly three years of the violence erupting on May 3, 2023, more than 40,000 people are still surviving in different relief centres set up across the length and breadth of the State. By March 31 is the assurance given by the Chief Secretary to resettle at least 40,000 people, but if the December timeframe is anything to go by, it is still not clear whether the Government would be able to ensure the safe return of the people to the place they once called home. The best that the people can do at the moment is to keep their fingers crossed and pray that everything goes well so that the displaced can return home. It is also not clear whether the 40,000 people to be resettled include those who were driven out of their homes from Churachandpur, Moreh and Kangpokpi or whether the line maintained by the former Chief Secretary that people displaced from these places would have to wait for some more time. This is where one is left wondering why PK Goel did not take the trouble of elaborating on this point, but whatever the reason, a March 31 timeframe has been given and one will have to wait and watch. Or will Manipur see a repeat of the not so distant past, when voluntary organisations and the internally displaced persons felt compelled to come out to remind the Government of their December timeframe ? One only hopes that the Government has done its homework and better still, taken the decision to crack the whip if and when any mischief makers come out with outlandish lines like, ‘Respect the buffer zones. Do not cross the line.’ Manipur has still not forgotten the night of January 21, when a Meitei man was massacred so non-chalantly, for ‘having dared’ to cross the ‘buffer zone’, go to the Kuki dominated Churachandpur and stay with his fiancee. What steps has the Government taken up to instil confidence in the people, especially in assuring that resettlement of 40,000 people would come by March 31 ? For starters why has the Government not been able to even identify the group which killed M Rishikanta ? Forget about arresting or identifying the people, what Manipur deserves to know is which group was responsible for carrying out the dastardly murder ? That such a point has been raised should more than indicate how effective Lok Bhavan has been in dealing with the situation here. Or in other words this could be an indication of the long rope given to the Kuki armed groups by Delhi.
It should also not be forgotten that resettlement should cut both ways. Has Delhi started studying the feasibility of letting the Kuki-Chin-Zo folks who left Imphal after May 3, 2023 return to the place they once called home ? Has any initiative been taken up to get in touch with the civil society organisations of the valley area along this line ? These are steps that the Government is expected to take and resettlement should be understood as all displaced folks being put in a position to return to their original home. And even as the Chief Secretary set the timeframe of March 31 to enable 40,000 IDPs to return home, the Co-ordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) is set to take out a mass rally on January 31, to stress the need for Delhi to rein in the Kuki armed groups which have been striking out at will. How seriously Lok Bhavan and Delhi take the proposed rally is yet to be known, but let it be clear that the rally is being planned in the face of the utter indifference of the Government to address the core issue, issue which is central to the ongoing clash. Why has Delhi not even once asked from where the guns used by the Kuki militants have come from, though Home Minister Amit Shah had taken a serious view of the arms looted from different police stations in the early days of the clash ?