Manipur CAF and PD Minister L Susindro alias Yaima on Wednesday said that almost all the people settling in the valley are unarmed whereas many of the people settling in the hills possess arms under Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement or have licenced guns in almost every households and narco-terrorists took the advantage to wage war against the Indian Union.
Susindro was speaking at the distribution of ‘special job cards’, ‘zero balance special bank accounts’ to 84 inmates of the relief camp Veterinary Guest House, Porompat, Imphal East district.
Under the Free Movement Regime (FMR), citizens of both India and Myanmar are allowed to enter freely into both sides within a distance of 16 km. However, the Assam Rifles who are supposed to protect the border were found to be deployed at areas which are 15 kilometres inside the actual border. Therefore, the number of illegal immigrants increased and we are facing the influx of infiltrators in Manipur, he added.
To prevent the illegal influx of immigrants from Myanmar, the present government under the leadership of Chief Minister N Biren Singh has made a special request to the Union Home minister to set up police outposts along the border area, he said.
Susindro further said that as per a Myanmarese news channel (Delhi), over 6 lakh Myanmarese nationals have entered into the Indian territory by passing through Manipur. The state government has requested to provide written records from the news channel. The news channel also reported that around 15 lakh population in Myanmar have been reduced till date, said Susindro.
There is strong suspicion that many of the illegal Myanmar nationals have been settling at the border village of Manipur. Moreover, those illegal Myanmarese settling in Manipur and some of the Kukis who have settled earlier have conspired together in causing the unrest in Manipur, he alleged.
Before the present turmoil erupted, he had inspected the hill areas of Manipur under the instruction of chief minister N Biren Singh to find out why the state started facing sudden scarcity of rainfall in the last few years, he added.
“I inspected most of the hills of Manipur for almost four hours in a helicopter and I found that the western side of Thangjing hill range was almost barren and mass poppy plantations were also seen,” Susindro said.
He said the present state government had formed a committee to identify the illegal Myanmarese nationals by constituting a committee of three ministers from Kuki, Naga and Meitei by making the Kuki minister as the chairman of the committee. If the government was against the Kuki community, then the Kuki minister might not have been appointed as chairman of the committee, he added.
Meanwhile, under the labour department’s One Card One Family, the state labor department will start enrolment for labour cards especially for the displaced persons staying in relief camps. A one-time financial assistance will be given to all the inmates of the relief camp starting from Thursday, he said.
Deputy commissioner, Imphal East, Khumanthem Diana; SDO; BDO nodal officer of the relief camp and others attended the function.
