New Delhi, July 08, 2023 (PPI-OT): Former Governor of Manipur Gurbachan Jagat has said that the situation in violence-hit Manipur is worse than Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. Gurbachan Jagat in an article published in The Tribune, wrote, “What defies all logic is the fact that police stations and police armouries have been attacked across the state and thousands of firearms and huge quantities of ammunition looted. This did not happen in the worst of times in J and K, Punjab, Delhi and Gujarat.”

He wrote that despite the appearance of a calm and slow-paced life in Manipur, ‘primal instincts’ were always visible in the state along with hostility towards the tribal population. He said that tribal territories were clearly marked and largely adhered to, with some cross-migration that ultimately emerged as faultlines where the recent spate of violence was targeted. He expressed concern for the people of the state where over a hundred have died, many have been injured, thousands of houses and villages burnt and the subsequent loss of livelihood of the people.

“Now let us come to the thousands who have lost not only members of their families but also their homes, their livestock and means of livelihood. Thousands have fled their homes and villages in the valley and the hills and found refuge in neighbouring states or in refugee camps set up temporarily. Some might have also gone across the border to Myanmar. Whatever little that might have survived the first onslaught of violence must now have been destroyed,” he said.

While raising questions about the condition of the ‘hastily’ set up refugee camps, he asked if a state that can’t protect its police stations can be expected to provide ‘quality shelters’. “I do not know how far the writ of the state administration has been restored and if it is able to monitor the activities at these camps. It has to be done on a war footing – providing food, shelter, sanitation, medicines, doctors, etc. It is a huge task and I hope and pray that those running the state government prove equal to the task,” Jagat wrote.

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