Opposition MPs question omission of Manipur violence in Home Secy’s briefing to parliamentary panel

New Delhi: Opposition MPs on Tuesday raised questions over the absence of mention of the situation in ethnic violence hit Manipur in a presentation of Home Secretary Govind Mohan before a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

Mohan made the presentation before the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Home Affairs headed by BJP MP Radha Mohan Aggarwal on the functioning of the Ministry of Home Affairs in which he spelt out the "major achievements" and 'Vision @ 2047 (2024-29)'.

In his 69-page presentation, the Home Secretary touched upon various achievements in Jammu and Kashmir, North-East, Left Wing Extremism, Disaster Management and Cyber Crime among other things. Forty-seven MHA officials were present in the meeting with some MPs saying they just provided a “rosy” picture and “not the actual one”.

Sources said the Opposition MPs raised questions about the absence of the mention of Manipur violence in a section on north-east, which was devoted three pages in the presentation. MPs said there is not even an acknowledgement of a problem in Manipur and without this, how can one suggest solutions.

On north-east, Mohan told the committee that there was a 71% reduction in insurgency incidents while there was a 60% decrease in  security forces casualties and 82% of civilian killings. He also mentioned about eight peace agreements with insurgent outfits in which around 4,500 militants surrendered or laid down arms.

Ceasefire agreements with various factions of NSCN and agreements with Bru and TIPRA among others were also mentioned. A senior MP who attended the meeting said there was no mention of "one particular state" in the whole presentation and that the areas of improvement were not mentioned though achievements and vision were spoken about.

When Mohan skipped a section on women safety, sources said, Trinamool Congress’ Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar pointed out the omission. She also said the section of women safety also did not mention Manipur where a large number of women were subjected to violence. The presentation spoke about distributing 18,020 sexual assault evidence kits to states and the Central Victim Compensation Fund releasing Rs 200 crore as a one-time measure for state schemes among other things.

Sources said MPs, including Trinamool Congress’ Derek O’Brien, demanded that federalism should be discussed in detail by the panel while pointing out that the Home Secretary's presentation devoted just one page to Centre-State relations in which he spoke about the number of meetings held by Inter-State Council.  

Muslim League’s Haris Beeran raised the issue of delay in conducting the decennial Census with the lawmaker pointing out that no reason has been given for it. He also raised concerns over the delay in allocating funds following the Wayanad disaster and queried the policy for disbursal of money.

A BJP MP raised concerns over cyber security and told the officials that they should give the quantum of losses due to cyber crime. Sources said MPs said the MHA officials should come back to the panel with details of “areas of improvement” so that they could get a clear picture of where it stands.

In the vision for the future, the Home Secretary identified a "terror-free Jammu and Kashmir", a "militancy-free peaceful north-east", "drug-free India" and "eliminating left-wing extremism" as the goals among other things.

The presentation also said that the MHA seeks to play a central role in protecting the interests of the Global South.