Troops walk thin line between friend and foe in violence-hit Manipur
The Hindu
More than 10,000 personnel of the Army and the paramilitary Assam Rifles were deployed to douse the ethnic fire that singed Manipur for at least three days from May 3
Armed forces personnel deployed in strife-torn Manipur have been walking the thin line between ‘friends’ and ‘foes’.
More than 10,000 personnel of the Army and the paramilitary Assam Rifles were deployed to douse the ethnic fire that singed Manipur for at least three days from May 3 following a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’.
The riot, triggered by a Manipur High Court order seeking a push for the proposal to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the majority Meitei community, left more than 60 people dead and destroyed some 1,700 houses.
Also read: Meiteis | Clash of clans in Manipur
“We had predisposed 17 columns even before being requisitioned on May 3, thus enabling us to react promptly and save about 7,900 people within hours of being deployed for handling the volatile situation,” an armed forces official said, declining to be quoted.
Of the 35,000 people— members of tribes belonging to the Kuki group as well as the majority non-tribal Meitei community— were displaced over the next 48 hours; around 24,000 took refuge in Army and Assam Rifles camps. Another 2,200 still remain, each waiting for the right time to return home or whatever is left of it.
Pune luxury car crash: Police custody for Shivani and Vishal Agarwal in destruction of evidence case
Shivani and Vishal Agarwal remanded to police custody for swapping blood samples in luxury car crash case.