GUWAHATI: Pressure mounts on the Centre to not go ahead with its plan to replace two battalions of the “neutral” Assam Rifles with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in ethnic violence-hit Manipur.After various Kuki-Zo organisations, the state’s all ten Kuki-Zo legislators, including two ministers, petitioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah requesting them to reconsider the move.In a letter, they said the Assam Rifles had helped prevent the escalation of the violence in the fringe areas during the ethnic conflict.“We have come to learn that there is a plan to withdraw 9th and 22nd battalions of the Assam Rifles from their current sensitive deployment at Kangvai and Kangpokpi following pressure from the communally-biased elements in the state government…” the MLAs wrote in the letter.They said the Centre’s “unwholesome” decision to replace the two Assam Rifles battalions with the CRPF at this critical juncture was nothing but a “sinister design” to expedite the “Meitei majoritarian ethnic cleansing campaign” against the Kuki-Zo community. “To maintain the current status quo, particularly in the buffer zones separating the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities, the undaunted and unbiased presence of the Assam Rifles is highly indispensable at this stage,” the Kuki-Zo legislators said.They also added that if the two battalions in question were to be shifted out, they be replaced with other Assam Rifles battalions. They requested the Centre to make necessary “rectification” in its decision in the best interest of justice.Earlier, the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity, an influential Imphal valley-based Meitei organisation, had sought the withdrawal of the Assam Rifles from the state for its alleged “questionable” actions during the conflict and declared an indefinite boycott of the force.Last month, the Assam Rifles rubbished the charge that the force sided with one community during the conflict. It categorically stated that it had maintained a neutral stance all along the conflict.Chief Minister N Biren Singh had told the state Assembly last Wednesday that the ethnic violence, which broke out on May 3 last year, left 226 people dead and over 59,000 others displaced.
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