Govt renews ban on Manipuri insurgent outfits

The government on Tuesday renewed the ban on a group of Manipuri insurgent outfits for another five years, saying if let free these groups will escalate "secessionist, subversive, terrorist and violent" activities.

The banned outfits include Peoples' Liberation army (PLA) and its political wing, the Revolutionary Peoples' Front (RPF), the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and its armed wing Manipur Peoples’ Army (MPA) and the Peoples' Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) and its armed wing Red Army.

Other outfits are the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) and its armed wing, also called the Red Army, the Kanglei Yaol Kanba Lup (KYKL), the Coordination Committee (CorCom) and the Alliance for Socialist Unity Kangleipak (ASUK).

Invoking the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the government has now declared them as unlawful organisations. The five-year ban on all these groups lapsed recently.

In a notification, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said these "Meitei Extremist Organisations" have "openly declared their objective" of forming an independent Manipur and have been "employing and engaging" in armed struggle to achieve their goal.

Claiming that they were indulging in "intimidation, extortion and looting" of civilian population for funds, it said they were found to be involved in 756 violent incidents for the past five years from January 1, 2013 and July 31, 2018.

They were also involved in the killing of 86 people, including 35 security personnel during the same period, it said.

According to the MHA, these outfits were also making contacts with sources abroad for influencing public opinion and for securing assistance in collecting arms and imparting training to its cadres.

These outfits, the notification said, are maintaining camps in neighbouring countries for the "purpose of sanctuaries, training and clandestine procurement of arms and ammunition".

It said, if the unlawful activities of these outfits are not curbed and controlled immediately, they take the opportunity of "mobilizing their cadres for escalating their secessionist, subversive, terrorist and violent activities" as well as "propagating anti-national activities in collusion with forces inimical to sovereignty and integrity of India".

The notification also said the outfits would indulge in killings of civilians and targeting of the police and security force personnel as well as get into "procuring and inducting illegal arms and ammunition from across the international border and extorting and collecting huge funds from public for their unlawful activities".