IMPHAL, January 12: The drama arising out of the recent incident wherein the Assam Rifles was charged of luring seven youths of Heirok to participate in a surrender drama got murkier today with several organizations of the area alleging that security personnel had tried to hunt down the seven youths for security verification yesterday afternoon.
The organizations are People Organization for Civil Integrity and Liberties, All Electricity Welfare Union, Heirok Eastern Sporting Union and the Youth Development Organization.
Speaking to media persons this afternoon at the Manipur Press Club, L Mandir Secretary POCIL said the security personnel who identified themselves as being from the “Naga Regiment” posted at “Dimapur” came in two gypsies and a 407 mini truck. One of the Gypsies had a ‘Deputy Commandant” name plate, he said and added that the Deputy Commandant identified himself as VK Daman.
Elaborating further, he alleged that the security forces arrived at the residence of one Moirangthem Oken and after his verification, they went to Milan`s residence, also one of the 7 in the fake drama episode for his verification.
Soon after getting news about the verification process of the local youths, villagers came out and intervened following which, the security personnel hurried away from the scene citing some important work at their post.
Condemning the action of the so called security forces, he said that following the incident, the seven youths are in a state of alarm and fear. He continued further that the `verification` was conducted without intimating the five SPOs, the local police station or any local elected representatives including the Pradhan.
In case such incidents are repeated again in the area, then it could lead to unwanted agitations, another spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, in a press release, Women Action For Developement (WAD) has expressed deep concern over the nature of misleading of 7 youths of Heirok by an anti social agency on the pretext of jobs recruitment and later confined as false surrendered UGs at an Assam Riffles post by forcibly signing their credentials to stage a surrender drama as KYKL- MDF cadres. “This is indeed an unfortunate event where dynamic youths of the state are forcibly misguided and misused,” the statement said and added that false promises and misguiding youths involving money transactions is an act of human trafficking and a crime against humanity. It also said that many UGs have `surrendered` and many `home coming ceremonies` have been organized `to welcome surrendered cadres with the intention of bringing them back to normalcy` but maintained that the involvement of many surrendered cadres in recent crimes like the Langol killing of Memchoubi, the killing of a non-manipuri businessman (Shangkarlal) and various other incidents reflect the very nature of such programs. WAD has further appealed to the state and Central governments to take immediate necessary measures to investigate the government’s surrender policy, to make public the total strength of surrender cadres and their placement as well as its monitoring process and mechanisms and asked for constituting WAD further appeal state and central government to constitute an independent commission to check and monitor the whole process.