By A Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Dec 16: “I am not waging war against the Indian government, rather I am striving to defend the ‘right to self-determination’ of the people of Manipur which had been forcibly annexed by the Indian government”, said the chairman of proscribed UNLF, RK Meghen today in his statement submitted to the judge of special NIA court through his counsel.
RK Meghen alias Sanayaima was brought before the special NIA court today at Guwahati and he has been taken under judicial custody till December 29.
In the statement submitted to the judge of special NIA court, AK Das by RK Meghen’s counsel Moirangthem Gunadhor, RK Meghen has not denied himself as the chief of the outfit and made justifications for his movement saying that he is not waging war against the Indian government but he is trying to defend the “right to self-determination” of the people of Manipur.
He further said that Manipur was an independent nation but she lost her independence after the Anglo-Manipuri War in 1891. She regained her independence from the British in 1947, but soon after her independence Manipur was forcibly annexed by the Indian government in 1949 by making the then Maharaja of Manipur Bodhachandra signed the merger agreement at gun-point. The people of Manipur still have the “right to self-determination” and as the chief of the UNLF he is moving forward to attain the goal of the Manipuris.
Meghen also said that he will accept whatever penalty the Indian authority gives for his movement but he decries the charges framed against him under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. He asserted that he is not a criminal and he has not committed any crime.
Further, the counsel of RK Meghen has made a plea to the competent court stating that Meghen is not a criminal and so no handcuffs should be put on him while being produced at the court. The hearing of the plea has been scheduled on December 21.
The Newmai News Network adds from Guwahati : Arrested chairman of Manipur-based underground group United National Liberation Front (UNLF), RK Meghen alas RK Sanayaima, was on Thursday produced in the court Guwahati, which remanded him in 14 days’ judicial custody.
“Meghen was produced in the court today. The NIA (National Investigation Agency) didn’t seek his further remand. So the court sent him in 14 days’ judicial custody,” sources told Newmai News Network in Guwahati this evening.
A bail petition filed by Meghen’s counsel was also withdrawn today, the sources said. “The bail petition was moved on December 3. It was withdrawn today since there is no possibility of the court granting bail to the arrested UNLF chief,” they said.
From now on till filing of charge-sheet, which the sources said is expected by February, Meghen would be produced in the court once in every 14 days.
The UNLF chief was remanded in 13 days’ custody of the NIA on December 3. He had then told the court that he was detained in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on September 29 and brought to Motihari in Bihar via Kolkata only on November 30.
Recently, UNLF chairman, Sanayaima aka RK Meghen, was arrested at Lalmatia locality in Bangladesh on September 29, 2010 by a joint team of Bangladeshi and Indian sleuths and reportedly extradited to India surreptitiously. The arrest was promptly reported by BBC news which was carried by regional newspapers subsequently thereafter. With the arrest taking a political turn, Bangladesh Communist Party was approached by its Indian counterpart to confirm the veracity of the news who sometimes in November relayed its confirmation in the affirmative. However, with the Government of India sitting in stoic silence over the issue, neither agreeing not disagreeing on the arrest, the people of the State rose up in protest against the government’s double standard and had begun to question its dispensation on theory and praxis of honoring international law.
On December 3, RK Meghen disclosed that he was of course arrested from Dhaka on September 29.