​Manipur violence: Ex-army chief flags Chinese aid to insurgents, says ‘foreign role cannot be ruled out’

Former Indian Army chief General MM Naravane on Friday (July 28) raised suspicion over the involvement of foreign agencies in the Manipur violence stating that it “cannot be ruled out”, flagging “Chinese aid to various insurgent groups”.

General (retd) Naravane pointed out that the instability in border areas is not good for the country’s national security.

“I am sure that those who are in the chair and responsible for taking whatever action is due to be taken are doing their best,” General (retd) Naravane said.

“The involvement of the foreign agencies, not only I say, cannot be ruled out but I will say they are definitely there, especially Chinese aid to various insurgent groups,” he added.

The former chief of the army staff said the Chinese aid has been helping these groups for years and will continue to do so even now.

On a question about the role of drug trafficking in the ongoing violence in the northeastern state, General (retd) Naravane said drug smuggling has been there for a very long time and the amount of drug which has been recovered has only increased over years.

“We are just a little remote from the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet). Myanmar is always in a state of disarray and military rule. Even at the best of times in Myanmar, the government only had control over the central Myanmar not really on the peripheral bordering state whether with India or with China or with Thailand. So drug trafficking has always been there,” he said.

‘Agencies who benefit from violence’

He suspected that there would be agencies or other actors in the game who benefit from the violence and who would not want a situation of normalcy to get on “because while this instability is there, they stand to benefit”.

“That might be one of the reasons why we are seeing this continuance of violence in spite of all the efforts, which I am sure have been put in by the state and the central governments to bring it down,” he said.

Manipur has been reeling under violence since May 3 which has claimed several lives.

When asked about the army recruitment scheme Agnipath, he said that only time will tell whether it is a good scheme or not.

“Agnipath was launched after a great deal of deliberations. Many people say that it was launched due to financial and pecuniary reasons. That is also going to have an impact but the fact is that we need a young army,” he said.

(With PTI inputs)

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