Foreign mercenaries and present armed conflict – Acknowledging the bitter truth

Disturbing reports about injured Myanmar nationals admitted to Churachandpur district Hospital for treatment of bullet and splinter wounds should be a wakeup call for the Government of India, as it implicates foreign hand in the ongoing armed conflict in the Indian state of Manipur. This report about Myanmar nationals who were injured either in bomb blasts or in gunshots was based on official report sent to the Chandel District Superintendent of Police by the Churachandpur District Superintendent of Police on June 28, 2023. Time and again media in Manipur particularly Imphal Times has been making relentless efforts to highlight to the central as well as the state government about the involvement of highly trained armed mercenaries from Myanmar in Narco-terrorism activities for a few decades. This newspaper had earlier carried a detailed report about the involvement of KNA-B cadres which is operating in Myanmar’s Chin state in the ongoing violence in Manipur. The matter came to light officially after the report of Myanmar based armed mercenaries undergoing treatment at Churachandpur district hospital came to our possession. Among those undergoing treatment, 5 are reportedly injured during the conflict that sparked since May 3 following a purported peace rally at Churachandpur where a large number of people were seen in battle fatigues brandishing sophisticated weapons among the crowd.
The issue of cross border Narco-terrorism has been a cause for concern to the people of the state for decades and yet the central as well as the state government have so far failed to understand and give it the importance and priority it deserves as the problem is a national or rather an international one and should have been dealt with as such. And after more than sixty-seven days of relentless arson, hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands displaced, there is not the slightest indications that the central government has understood or accorded the present crisis in Manipur the seriousness and immediacy it deserves which again led the people of the state to raise questions about the promises and assurances repeatedly made by the leaders from both the center as well as the state.
It would be also pertinent to mention the importance of understanding the concept of Zalengam as a separate region comprising parts of Bangladesh, Mizoram and Manipur as envisaged during the 80s to justify the armed terrorist acts and establish a flourishing international drug transit route as well as introduce poppy cultivation in these regions. Now that the menace of these drug related activities is spreading rapidly across the region and probably across the nation and has impacted lives cutting across ethnicity, religion or region, the inexplicable silence is increasingly suggesting the complicity of powerful people from across the country and their involvement in the international drug and arms trafficking has been doing the rounds for more than a few decades now. That this present armed conflict is a calculated move to justify the agenda of Zalengam and perpetuate the nefarious activities along the porous international border should be given due weightage if the central and state government honestly want to prevent further deterioration in the state and eventually across the country.