New Delhi: Two pertinent factors may have set up the stage for Saturday’s ambush of the Assam rifles convoy that killed seven including the commanding officer of 46 Assam Rifles Colonel Viplav Tripathi, his wife and six-year-old son, and four other Assam Rifles personnel.
One, November 13 is marked every year as a black day by the banned People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), ever since some of its top leaders were killed by a combined force of paramilitary CRPF and the Manipur state police on November 12, 1978.
Two, while the PREPAK doesn’t have any presence in this area, the principal valley-based militant group the PLA operates in this area. The PLA is known to operate two camps across the Churachandpur border in Myanmar within 20 km from the border.
While the PREPAK is a pale shadow of its earlier self in terms of strength of cadres and weapons, the PLA is among the biggest insurgent organizations in the insurgency-plagued state.
All these facts point to a joint operation by the Manipur valley-based insurgent outfits.
Col Tripathi’s Assam Rifles team had visited the Behiang post on November 12, 2021 and was returning back when the ambush took place.
The attack took place in classic guerilla style with the explosion of IEDs followed by firing from automatic weapons.
In July 2011, seven valley-based insurgent outfits—the Revolutionary People's Front (RPF), the political wing of the People's Liberation Army—PLA, United National Liberation Front (UNLF), PREPAK, its Progressive faction (PREPAK-Pro), Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), and United Peoples Party of Kangleipak (UPPK)—got together to form the conglomerate named the Coordination Committee (CorCom). Later the UPPK was ousted from the ‘CorCom’.
Notably, in 2015, various Northeast insurgent organisations came together under an umbrella organisation called the “United National Liberation Front of Western South-East Asia” (UNLFW) comprising the NSCN (K), ULFA, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO).
Interestingly, most of the major insurgent outfits from Manipur and the Northeast region have a Chinese connection — by either being aided with weapons supply or provided guerilla training. And with India and China’s relationship passing through one of the worst times in recent memory, and neigbouring Myanmar undergoing a turbulent time after the February 1 coup, it is only obvious that the Northeast outfits will try their outmost to make their depleting presence felt.
Also read: Colonel, family, among 7 dead in Manipur ambush, PM condoles
