Assam Rifles Director General Lieutenant General PC Nair has strongly refuted allegations of Assam Rifles siding with one community, asserting that the force has maintained a neutral stance in Manipur since May 3. He dismissed reports suggesting bias as rumors and falsehoods driven by specific agendas.
On the current situation in the North Eastern region, Assam Rifles Director General Lieutenant General PC Nair says, “When you look at the security situation in the northeast, you also have to look at the situation in the neighbouring countries adjacent in some way or the other. The northeast itself shares borders with Bhutan, Myanmar, China, Bangladesh, and Nepal, of course, a little off beyond the sitting recorder. But the point I am trying to make is, that if there is something happens in any of these countries, particularly in the bordering areas, there will be an impact here also because of the common land borders, and the common ethnicity that is shared. So if you look at it currently, Bangladesh has a small problem that I am sure they will be able to resolve. It is a small problem, but the larger problem lies in Myanmar. Ever since the dispensation changed in Myanmar, there has been a huge impact on the northeast in terms of the movement of insurgent groups, the movement of contraband, and the movement of weapons. So those have surely impacted and added to that the current situation that is there in Manipur since last year, has also impacted. Whatever happens in Manipur doesn’t get restricted to Manipur. There is a propensity of that having a spillover effect in the neighbouring states also. So if you ask me in one line as to what is the overall security situation, it is quite okay. Nothing great. In terms of insurgency, yes, there are cases in terms of the move of contrabands, cases of the move of militants to the camps… So these kinds of things have been happening for long periods…”
On the Manipur situation, Assam Rifles Director General Lieutenant General PC Nair says, The Assam Rifles has maintained a neutral stance since ethnic violence began in Manipur in May 2023, the dual-role force’s Director General Lieutenant General PC Nair has said, and termed as “stupid reports” allegations that the Assam Rifles has been “favouring once community and not the other”.
Lt General Nair said to call the Assam Rifles (AR) biased towards a particular community is “nothing but rumours” spread by hidden agenda. He added,
“…If videos are going around, these are doctored videos. I can tell you I have about 30 to 40 videos which have been circulating. Don’t even belong to the northeast. They are from Myanmar, they are from other places. Some of them are from the Rohingya region. But some people who have a hidden agenda to create trouble here are doctoring that and showing them as security forces acting against people. Yes, there have been certain other instances where videos of Manipur have been shown. But amongst those videos also, it is only part of the incident. Let’s say an incident has happened for about five to ten minutes. Let’s say there are people been stopped and Assam riffle trying to stop them or whatever. In these videos that are being propagated, they only show part clippings which makes the story very different. Unless you see the entire video, unless you see the complete facts, you will tend to get carried away by what is coming. And that is precisely what is happening. Part of the story, part of the photograph, and part of the videos are what are being made and shown to drive a certain agenda which is wrong.” He further added “…From the first day, that is from the 3 May itself, Assam Rifle has maintained a neutral stand (in Manipur). So all these narratives that have been coming are agenda-driven. It makes me laugh when I read some of these stupid reports stating that the Assam riffle is favouring one community, not favouring the other. These are nothing but rumours, falsehoods, preposterous. There is no background to this and I can substantiate it with statistics…to call us being biased towards a particular community is wrong.”
