The Ambush on the dicy and mysterious roads of Churachandpur Manipur!
By: M S Nazki
It was tragic and it was bad yet again as it had been in the past, the tactics used were familiar, IED explosion first and then the……..!
=‘Long time back a very good friend of mine, my commando buddy in a discussion told me as we sat in my house in Dehradun that the cause doesn’t have to be righteous and battle doesn’t have to be winnable; but over and over again throughout history, men have chosen to die in battle with their friends rather than to flee on their own and survive!’ At that time we were young men but today at different places but trust me the spirit is the same! The right hand, in a slick mode, still moves to the right side of the right eye towards the forehead when incidents such as the one in Churachandpur happen! ‘It has to be a great salute to the men who got into a trap set by the cowards’ The unfortunate part of the device called an ambush is that there is no reaction time because it is sudden, though the response as the counter offensive does come in but by then the damage has been done! In this case the same happened yet again’!
-‘When I heard this one in my office memories swirled through my head like leaves caught in a storm, urging me to a distant place back into the times and the events of North-East insurgency where lethal ambushes were a part of the gamut of affairs, the lethal turns, jungles and the uncanny operating patterns of the various terror groups based in jungles of Bhutan, Myanmar and the marshy swamps of Bangladesh! After the great strike by the Indian Army in Myanmar everything had fallen silent but this one was a stunner’!
-‘The terror attack – one of the deadliest in the region in recent times – took place at 11 am in Manipur’s Churachandpur district. Manipur-based terrorist groups People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, and Manipur Naga People’s Front, or MNPF claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. There was an improvised explosive device, or IED, blast before heavy firing from both sides of the road started’!
-‘This is the usual tactic that the terrorists or undergrounds as they are called in Manipur use, ‘blow up and then keep the fire going’. This was not the first time that this plan was employed and this is what is taught in counter insurgency and jungle warfare school at Vairangte Mizoram! This happened after a very long time. It should not have but ruling out the possibility should not have been on the planning menu of the operational forces!’
-‘The news itself was distressing, Colonel, his wife and son among 7 dead In ambush by terrorists In Manipur. Colonel Viplav Tripathy, had gone to a forward camp and was returning when his convoy was ambushed!’
-‘Soon it was known that Five soldiers including Colonel Viplav Tripathi, Commanding Officer of 46 Assam Rifles, had made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. The family of the Commanding Officer – wife and child – also lost their lives. DG and all ranks of Assam Rifles offer condolences to the brave soldiers and families.’
-‘This is the first time that civilians (a lady and a child) have died in an ambush in this remote area of the district. The location is an extremely remote village around 50 km from Churachandpur. Colonel Tripathi was posted in Mizoram before Manipur. People in Mizoram’s capital Aizawl who knew the Colonel say he was a very polite officer and would often help civilians in his area of operation.’
-‘Manipur, like many of the north-eastern states, is home to several armed groups fighting for either greater autonomy or secession. For decades, the Army has been deployed to the area that has borders with China, Myanmar, Bangladesh’!
=‘But let us be practical, fight for the nation has to keep going on, combat isn’t where you might die, though that does happen and every soldier knows that but it is still where you find out whether you get to keep on living. The Indian soldier knows that too. So don’t underestimate the power of that revelation is what is imbibed in him. Don’t underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time. Indian soldiers love that. Indeed it was a setback but the show and the spirit to keep the Nation safe and secure sacrifice have to be made! The officer, his lady, the child and the four soldiers did it. Another big sacrifice in the annals of the history of Assam Rifles, the protectors of North East India and the men who matter in one of the most beautiful parts of India!’
Winston Churchil the British Prime Minister in World War II nailed it, ‘we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.’ He was not wrong. These seven who died were doing exactly that but some idiots thought that they were not! But what was the fault of that lady and the child?’
-‘Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his condolences and condemned the attack on the Assam Rifles convoy. ‘Strongly condemn the attack on the Assam Rifles convoy in Manipur. I pay homage to those soldiers and family members who have been martyred today. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of sadness’!
The situation in Manipur had shown gradual improvement over the longer time-frame, but remained fragile. In particular, it is still vulnerable as this incident proved so. The District of Churachandpur, with an area of 4,750 square kilometers, came into existence in the year 1969. Churachandpur was previously known as Manipur South District, and shares its borders with the Tamenglong, Bishnupur, Senapati and Jiribam (earlier part of Imphal East District) Districts of Manipur; the Cachar District of Assam; and the Champhai and Kolasib Districts of Mizoram. Churachandpur District also falls along the India-Myanmar International border, sharing its borders with the Chin region of Myanmar. Sandwiched’ between these areas, many of which are facing their own sets of insurgency-related problems, Churachandpur provides a perfect setting for insurgency to thrive, serving as a critical transit route for several insurgent groups.
The Mizo National Front (MNF), which had launched an armed rebellion against the Government of India on February 28, 1966, had also used this District as a transit route for its operations. That rebellion came to an end with the MNF signing an Accord in 1986. Even Meitei groups such as the PLA, Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Kanglei Yowel Kanna Lup (KYKL) and United National Liberation Front (UNLF), have occasionally used the District as a transit from Myanmar to India and vice versa.
The insurgency in Churachandpur, was led by Kuki-Zomi tribal groups who claimed to ‘protect and promote’ the interests of their community with the proclaimed objective of creating Zalengam (Land of freedom), a separate Kuki-Zomi State. Apart from Churachandpur, Kangpokpi District (earlier in Senapati District), some parts of the now-reorganized Senapati District, Tamenglong, Chandel and Ukhrul Districts, are included in the imagined Zalengam ‘State’.
In the late 1980s, KNO and the Kuki National Front (KNF) were leading the insurgency in the District. Later, they were joined by their own splinter groups (these two formations faced multiple splits) and by smaller tribal groups like the Hmar, Paite and Kom. Further on, there was a process of consolidation within the various groups and two principal formations emerged – KNO and United People’s Front (UPF). KNO accounted for 15 constituent groups: Kuki National Army (KNA), the armed wing of KNO; Kuki National Front – Military Council (KNF-MC); Kuki National Front – Zogam (KNF-Z); United Socialist Revolutionary Army (USRA); Hmar National Army (HNA); United Komrem Revolutionary Army (UKRA); United Minorities Liberation Front (UMLF); Zou Defence Volunteers (ZDV); Kuki Liberation Army (KLA); Pakan Reunification Army (PRA); Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA); United Old Kuki Liberation Army (UOKLA-Khoipu-Maring); United Tribal Liberation Army (UTLA); and Kuki National Front-Samuel (KNF-S). Similarly, UPF comprises eight groups: Kuki National Front (KNF); Zomi Revolutionary Organisation (ZRO)/Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA); Kuki Revolutionary Army-United (KRA-United); Zomi Defence Force (ZDF), United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF), Kuki Revolutionary Front (KRF), Zomi Defence Volunteers (ZoDV); and Hmar People’s Convention-Democratic (HPC-D). Though the talks with the center were on, yet this strike is a bit disturbing!
The insurgents in North East are primarily a propagandists, a bunch of agitators, a band of disseminators of the revolutionary idea but if I know Manipur correctly which I do, the people are simple and want to live peacefully but there are few in the above mentioned categories who use the simplicity of the people as an instrument of agitation. Their primary goal is to raise the level of revolutionary anticipation, and then of popular participation, to the crisis point at which the revolution becomes general throughout the state and the people in their masses carry out the final task-the destruction of the existing order and (often but not always) of the army that defends it. But this is nothing more than a war of a flea! They (insurgents know and so do the people) know that they cannot prevail but yet they continue meaning that someone is instigating them? But who exactly? Insurgencies do not survive without money and weapons? Where are they coming from? Some questions still need answers!
The impact of the highly improbable hurts and at times submerges one into melancholy! I called her the black swan from Loktak lake. She was a kind of a girl from Manipur (the neighborhood called her Tahibi) who transformed fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. I knew that her two brothers were part of the UNLF (M-Meghan) group but never told her that. This I had come to know from the very first visit to her house. I wanted her to come out with the secret and I knew she would and she did! Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears. But Manipur is a place where people tell the straight truth, it is up to the listener to have the sharp ears listening and the black swan did so and I heard it! Her brothers and a few more did bite the bullet as they had to and that day she did lament while she said, missing a train is only painful if you run after it! My brothers did miss it somewhere and thus paid the price! I had to listen and her words till date reverberate in my eardrums! But that was a part of a job to be done!
