Highlights:
- The commanding officer of the 46th Assam Rifles Convoy along with his wife, his 6-year-old son and 4 soldiers were martyred in an appalling ambush in Manipur on Saturday.
- Militant group, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in conjunction with the Manipur Naga People’s Front have borne responsibility for the attack.
- Officials hint at the possibility of Chinese involvement in fuelling insurgent groups amid border tensions in the LAC Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.
Border security has been intensified after the ghastly attack on the Assam Rifles convoy killing the commanding officer, Colonel Viplav Tripathy, his wife, his six-year-old son and 4 jawans in the jungle enclosing the village of Sekhen, Manipur. IED blast followed by heavy firing from both sides of the road were reported by sources. The initial probe reveals that the ambush was a “well-planned” one.
Banned Manipur-based Terrorist organisations, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which operates under the Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) and the Manipur Naga People’s Front have collectively claimed responsibility for the attack. Manipur CM N Biren Singh while commenting on the incident said that the Government detests such acts of terror and that security will be stepped up along the border areas of the state to ensure protection.
Denouncing the petrifying ambush, he added that the home department and the paramilitary forces have been ordered to arrest and reprimand the perpetrators. There might be a possibility of Chinese involvement since this is definitely not the first time that their links with insurgent groups have been subject to inspection.
Rebel groups in the northeast including Manipur have associations with armed groups such as Arakan Army and United Wa State Army in Myanmar. It is from here that the Chinese weapons tread into the northeastern regions of India.
China, in the past, has provided refuge to rebel group leaders such as Paresh Baruah, commander of the United Liberation Front of Assam and Phunting Shimrang of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, as reported by a senior official.
15 heavily armed militants attacked the convoy in Manipur’s Churachandpur district at 11 am on Saturday when Colonel Viplav along with his family and Quick Reaction Team (QRT) were returning from the Behian border post and advancing towards the battalion headquarters at Khuga.
Lieutenant General of the Assam Rifles, General Shokin Chauhan opinionated that it was plausible that China might have renewed links with the PLA Manipur and other congruent groups along with the pretext of the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and border tension prevailing in Arunachal Pradesh. He believes this was an attempt to unleash chaos in the northeast and bring down the security forces.
