North East
Why The Indo-Myanmar Border Town Of Moreh Has Re-Emerged As Manipur’s Ethnic Flashpoint
"Manipur has lost a true son of the soil today," Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said after Chingtham Anand Kumar was "martyred in the line of duty."
The killing Tuesday (31 October) morning of a mid-ranking police officer in Moreh — a town along the Indo-Myanmar border, about 115 kilometres (km) southeast of state capital Imphal — and the ambush on a team of police commandos en route to Moreh the same afternoon were not one-off events.
The back-to-back incidents, both perpetrated by members of Kuki terror groups with cross-border linkages, are evidence of an attempt by Kukis to wrest control over Moreh and impose their writ along the international border.
The police officer — Chingtham Anand Kumar, a Meitei — was shot dead by a sniper while he was supervising the construction of a helipad in Moreh. He was the Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) at Moreh that morning.
The state government rushed a contingent of police commandos and armed policemen, led by an inspector general (IG) and comprising a deputy inspector general and two superintendent-ranked police officers, by road to Moreh.
These reinforcements were ambushed by Kuki terrorists at Sinam, 50 km short of Moreh town, around 3 pm Tuesday.
The Manipur Police team were rescued by an Assam Rifles team. Several police commandos were injured in the ambush.
The killing of the SDPO and the attack on police reinforcements by Kuki terrorists were intended to send a chilling message to the Manipur government — lay off Moreh and allow Kukis to retain complete control over the border town that is a gateway for contraband, including drugs smuggled in from Myanmar.
Seeking Control Over Moreh
The border town of Moreh is the gateway for not only drugs and other smuggled goods coming into Manipur from Myanmar, but also the Kuki-Chin people from the neighbouring country.
Moreh has, in fact, turned into a large safe haven for illegal Kuki-Chin infiltrators.
Illegal Kuki-Chin immigrants from Myanmar have flocked to the Tengnoupal, Chandel, and Churachandpur districts of Manipur and changed the demography of those areas.
This illegal immigration is encouraged by the Kukis of Manipur, who have a vested interest in increasing their numbers, claiming more territories as their own to assert their ethnicity in the state.
Moreh is key to this plan as it is the main gateway for the illegal influx of Myanmarese nationals. That is why Kukis have, over the past few decades, targeted and driven away the Nagas, Meiteis, Tamils, Nepalis, and other ethnic groups who used to inhabit Moreh (read this and this).
The Kukis of Moreh attacked the Meiteis and the properties they owned soon after ethnic violence broke out in the state on 3 May. Hundreds of Meiteis have had to flee Moreh.
The properties abandoned by the Meiteis were attacked and torched again in July. The arson was carried out mostly by Kuki-Chin infiltrators from Myanmar in order to warn off the Meiteis from returning to Moreh.
The Kuki control over Moreh is complete now. Kuki organisations like the Kuki Inpi and the misleadingly named Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) now want to assert the community’s control over all aspects of life in Moreh and, effectively, become the de facto rulers of the town.
But Manipur Police stands in the way of this plan. That is why Kuki groups have been opposing the presence of police, including commandos of the state police, in Moreh.
Kuki terrorists control stretches of the Imphal-Moreh highway, especially in Kakching and Tengnoupal. They extort huge sums of money from goods and passenger vehicles plying on this highway, and have ambushed police teams.
That is why the state government is constructing a helipad at Moreh. There are two existing helipads in the town, but those belong to the Assam Rifles. And according to the popular perception in Manipur, the Assam Rifles is biased in favour of Kukis.
The Assam Rifles guards the Indo-Myanmar border, and has a strong presence in Moreh. But even with the Assam Rifles standing guard, the illegal influx of Kuki-Chin people from Myanmar into Moreh has continued.
It is suspected that many of the illegal infiltrators are members of Myanmar-based terror outfits like the Chin National Army (CNA), the Chin National Defense Force (CNDF), the Chinland Defence Force (CDF), and the Kuki National Army (KNA).
In the past, the Assam Rifles has denied the existence of members of these outfits in Moreh and the surrounding areas of Manipur. But senior police officers assert that a large number of them, armed with sophisticated weapons, has taken shelter in Moreh and some other parts of Tengnoupal district.
The large helipad, whose construction was being supervised by the slain SDPO, is meant to facilitate the aerial induction of police, including police commandos, into Moreh.
Naturally, the Kukis are hell-bent on frustrating this initiative. And hence the killing of the police officer which, the Kukis hope, will deter the construction of the helipad.
The subsequent ambush of police reinforcements was carried out with the same intent. The fact that Kuki terrorists dared to attack a police contingent led by so many senior officers speaks of their daring, and their impunity.
The justification of the Kuki terrorists' attacks offered by the Kuki Inpi and the ITLF is proof enough of the larger design of Kuki outfits to take control of Moreh.
“The Kuki Inpi Manipur have made repeated appeals to the government of India to withdraw the police commandos from Moreh to prevent any untoward incident against the minority Kuki-Zo community,” the Kuki Inpi said in a statement.
The ITLF condemned "fresh attempts by the Manipur government to send Manipur police to Moreh to carry out operations against innocent Kukis."
There was no word of condemnation from any Kuki body regarding the killing of the police officer and the subsequent ambush.
Operations In Moreh
The Kuki groups' plan has seemingly backfired. The state government has ordered intensive cordon and search operations in Moreh and the surrounding areas from Wednesday (1 November) morning.
Within a few hours of the launch of the operation by police and paramilitary forces, 44 people, including 32 Myanmar nationals, were detained by the security forces in Moreh.
Top police officers told Swarajya from Imphal that more Myanmarese nationals hiding in Moreh town and the nearby villages are expected to fall into the dragnet over the next few days.
The combing operations, say security experts, will result in many of the illegal infiltrators still sheltered in Moreh town and other areas fleeing back to Myanmar.
“We will conduct house-to-house searches now to flush out all Myanmarese nationals and Kuki militants. The lawlessness in Moreh will end,” said an IG-ranked police officer who did not want to be named.
“The NIA is also conducting an investigation into the conspiracy by (Chin-Kuki-Zo) terror groups based in Myanmar, Manipur, and Bangladesh to stoke ethnic strife in Manipur,” said the police officer.
Home Minister Amit Shah has said that the ethnic strife in Manipur is being encouraged and abetted by terror groups from across the border.
The Manipur government feels, and rightly so, that once control of Moreh is wrested back from the grip of Kuki-Chin groups, the security situation in Manipur will ease up a lot.
Moreh, thus, holds the key to peace in Manipur. Once this border town is cleansed of Kuki-Chin terrorists and infiltrators from Myanmar, Manipur can start treading down the path to normalcy.
Read our ground reports from Moreh —
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