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Manipur : Ibobi walks June uprising tightrope

	June 26, 2006

Wiser from the experience of a Naga

backlash last year, Manipur Chief Minister

Okram Ibobi Singh stayed away from all

Integrity Day programmes held on June 18

throughout the state, but he sent a ministerial team

to the main event, lest he fall foul of organisations

in the valley.

A team of ministers paid floral tributes at the

memorials to the 18 people who died in police firing

during the upheaval over the extension of the Delhi-

NSCN (I-M) ceasefire to Manipur in June 2001.

Last year, Ibobi Singh was accused of

“legitimising” the June uprising through an official

holiday on June 18. So furious was the Naga

community that it enforced a 52-day economic

blockade on the state’s two lifelines, national

highways 39 and 53.

Led by Thoudam Debendra Singh, the secondin-

command in the Secular Progressive Front

ministry, a ministerial team reached Kekrupat, near

Kangla Fort, around 8 am to participate in the UCMorganised

programme.

Kekrupat is the place where the bodies of the

18 protesters killed in police firing were cremated.

“The people are observing the day in memory

of the uprising. I think there is nothing wrong or

unconstitutional in holding the programme. This is

to protect the territorial integrity of Manipur,”

Debendra Singh told the media, albeit without any

reference to the warning from Naga students.

Lok Sabha member Thokchom Meinya Singh

and Speaker Maniruddin Shaikh were part of the

team.

As calls for “unity and peaceful co-existence”

rent the air in the state capital, Nagas of Manipur

spent the day in churches, praying for “Naga unity”

and a “speedy agreement” between the NSCN (IM)

and New Delhi. Mass prayer sessions were held in

response to a call from the United Naga Council,

the apex organisation of the tribal community.

On the other hand, speakers at two

programmes in Imphal cautioned New Delhi against

making any attempt to break up Manipur in its bid

to “appease” one community.

Army review

Eastern Command chief, Lt Gen. Arvind

Sharma, accompanied by 3 Corps commander Lt

Gen. Z.U. Shah, arrived in Imphal on June 24 to

review the security scenario in the state.

The officers met Chief Minister Okram Ibobi

Singh and Governor S.S. Sidhu to discuss the

insurgency scenario in the aftermath of the recent

offensive against militants in the southern districts

of Churachandpur and Chandel, both of which share

their borders with Myanmar.