GUWAHATI: As part of the effort to restore peace in Manipur, the government plans to keep intact a team of 1,946 newly inducted India Reserve Battalion personnel, who hail from Meitei, Kuki, Naga, and other communities and were trained together in Assam.
Talking to media on the sidelines of their passing out parade at the Lachit Borphukan Police Academy in Dergaon on Monday, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said they were trained together and they would work together.
“I said in my speech that, as they underwent training together, they will also work together in Manipur. It will be the beginning of an effort to restore peace. There will not be any division (on ethnic lines). We will try to maintain the unity that Manipur had before,” Singh said in response to a query.
He also said that the division of communities was caused by the situation and did not exist before. Now, the state government will not allow this to happen, he added.
The violence between Meiteis and Kuki-Zo tribals, which broke out on May 3 last year, had ethnically partitioned the state, with people from the two communities living and working in areas where they are in a large majority.
Given the situation, the recruits were flown to Assam to undergo the training. They are likely to be brought back by road.
Singh said the training of these recruits from the 10th and 11th IR battalions could not be organised in Manipur due to the situation arising out of the conflict.
“When I took up the matter of their training in Assam with my colleague and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, he immediately agreed. I am thankful to him, the Assam government, Assam police and the people of Assam,” Singh said, adding, “There are still complications in the Manipur situation and it will take time to restore peace. You must have seen peace is slowly returning.”
Meanwhile, he said the states in the Northeast would have to unite and tackle the problem of illegal migration of people from Bangladesh and Myanmar as one. He said this was not an issue of Manipur alone but several states of the region were impacted by it.
A 23-member Manipur delegation, led by Singh, was present at the passing out parade. The delegation included six ministers and an MP.