In an interview to comment upon and discuss two days of rocket propelled grenades dropped by drones in Imphal, one of Manipur’s most senior journalists, Pradip Phanjoubam, has said that the security forces dropped their guard and after four months of relative calm a certain complacency set in. He says the technology to counter and check drones exists in Manipur but was not used. Now Phanjoubam says he fears a prolonged spell of violence in the state. He does not believe that these recent attacks are one offs.
Phanjoubam said that speculation – as contained in some national papers – that the drone attacks on September 1 and 2 could have been carried out by Kuki insurgents who have breached the terms of the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement needs to be verified. As of now, we simply don’t know who carried out the attacks.
In a 25-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Phanjoubam said the demand raised by MLA Rajkumar Imo Singh, the chief minister’s son-in-law, in a letter to the Union home minister yesterday, calling for all 60,000 central forces in Manipur to be removed is “hasty” and “not properly thought out”.
The interview contains an extensive section about the recent audio tapes, where a voice that purports to be the voice of chief minister Biren Singh claims that he is the architect of the violence and has encouraged it and allowed it to happen. He says, very clearly, that the voice sounds like that of the chief minister.
