Our Correspondent
KOHIMA, JUNE 18
The Inspector General Assam Rifles (North), Major General MS Jaswal on Thursday said that the Naga society has to get together and put collective pressure on insurgents to eliminate violence in the state.
Interacting with media persons in the state capital today at the IGAR (N) headquarters, Maj Gen Jaswal expressed his view on the insurgency movement prevalent in the state. He feels that peace is not fully achieved in Nagaland as the people are holding history too much on stake and are unable to progress forward. Talking about the prevailing situation which has been spurted since the abrogation of ceasefire with the Centre by the NSCN (K) in March, the military official said operations to remove violent elements from the society will continue. He affirmed that the civilians bear the brunt unintentionally in such process, and he termed this the “saddest part of insurgency”. He also said their major fear is the social cost and civil collateral damage.On the June 7 incident where five youths were picked up on suspicion of being NSCN (K) cadres, the IG said the AR were simply acting on intelligence inputs. He explained that a particular car was followed for a while with the intel that it was transporting ration to underground cadres, and the youths happened to be in the same market area where that particular car was reported to be at. “Honestly, the troops could also have been a little wrong in their dealings,” he said, but went on to add that once it was ascertained that the youths were not cadres, they were released.
If taken in the right perspective, he said, these operations are carried out to sanitize and take out the violent elements of the society, and not to induce fear. Maj Gen Jaswal also pointed out that five such operations of picking up NCSN (K) cadres were carried out in the past few months and four of them were accurate.
He lamented that when peace was disturbed by rogue elements and the security forces suffered tactical reverse and soldiers lost their lives, people remained quiet, but following the June 7 incident the Assam Rifles was depicted in the media as the culprit, not the NSCN (K).
He disclosed that military intelligence indicates around 300 odd cadres of the outfit are still “roaming around” in the state, and he reaffirmed that when there are occurrences of violence, counter violence operations will continue.
On the situation in the Indo-Myanmar border, the IG said measures are being taken up to clamp down on infiltration of insurgents from one side to the other. However, he admitted to some drawbacks such as difficulty in operating for fear of accidentally harming civilians and affecting the economic sustenance of Naga villagers from the other side who depend on goods from the Indian side. The IG said proposal to the government to regulate “free move regime” along the border areas has been sent so that civilians can be screened through identifiable crossing-points.
He also voiced concern that even after the abrogation of ceasefire by the NSCN (K), hundreds of Kgs of ration for cadres of the outfit are still being bought from Mon town. He said transfer of ration from one side to the other has to be monitored by the civil administration and not the AR, as he feels that the best situation will be for the troops to remain away from public.
All in all, the military official strongly expressed the need for the civil society and organizations to step forward and say “no” to terrorism and violence.
