IMPHAL, Dec 3 ? A series of landmine blasts at the ?conflict zone? in the interior areas of Manipur bordering Myanmar that cost the lives of a dozen people including securitymen, insurgents and civilians have sounded an alert particularly to the voluntary organizations of the ethnic tribals.
In the absence of high tech devices, troops of the Indian Army now launching large-scale counter-insurgency campaigns at the Indo-Myanmar border villages of Molcham and Selon in Chandel district of Manipur are using cattle to detect landmines planted by insurgents, intelligence reports said here on Friday.
As part of the operations to flush out militants from their hideouts along the porous border, the Army personnel forcibly took away several numbers of cattleheads to search for mines following information that underground outfits have planted the explosive devices to foil advancing security forces. Holding ends of long ropes tied at the neck of the domesticated animals, the Army personnel herd the cattle to vulnerable spots on the hill slops, road sides, and paddy fields and inside thick jungles.
Fearing reprisals from the security personnel, the villagers had reluctantly complied with the army?s insistence, the sources added. A Defence wing press statement, however, said that more than 15 IEDs have been neutralised, besides killing 29 rebels of different outfits in the operations.
Several ethnic tribals? voluntary organizations and students? bodies including the Zomi Mothers? Association, All Colleges Tribal Students? Organization, Manipur and Kuki Students? Organization, in separate statements have strongly condemned killing of an innocent tribal girl Chinhoikim Touthang and Doukholun Hangha in separate landmine blasts by underground activists.
Terming it unfortunate, the statement said that the underground cadres did not take up any precautionary measures. The voluntary bodies urged the governments at the Centre and the state to deploy adequate security forces to protect the lives of innocent people and their properties. They also demanded payment of ex-gratia to the bereaved families of those who have been killed in the landmine blast.