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After being stopped by police en-route to Churachandpur by road on Thursday afternoon, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reached the town by helicopter in the evening, five hours behind schedule, on the first day of his two-day visit to Manipur.
Once there, he said he had travelled to Manipur to listen to the people. “People of all communities are being very welcoming and loving. It’s very unfortunate that the government is stopping me. Manipur needs healing. Peace has to be our only priority,” he said in a Twitter post.
Rahul, who is visiting the conflict-ridden state nearly two months after violence first broke out, is the most prominent national Opposition leader to visit Manipur so far. According to his team’s initial travel itinerary, after his arrival at Imphal airport, he was supposed to reach the Kuki-Zomi dominated hill district of Churachandpur by 11:45 am, visit relief camps and meet affected families there. After this, he was supposed to head back to the valley and visit relief centres in the Meitei-dominated Bishnupur district by 3:30 pm.
He arrived at Imphal airport on Thursday and his convoy began to head towards Churachandpur by road, a distance of around 55 km that requires travelling through Imphal West and Bishnupur districts.
However, his convoy was halted by the police in front of Bishnupur police station, around 23 km from the border to Churachandpur district, leading to tension and a confrontation.
A crowd had gathered demanding the unhindered passage of Rahul’s convoy, resulting in clashes with the police. Teargas shells were used to disperse the crowd, and a security escort accompanying the Congress convoy sustained injuries during the incident.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Bishnupur Superintendent of Police Heisnam Balram Singh said that the decision not to give a go-ahead for security reasons had been taken that morning together with the district administration and in coordination with the Advance Security Liaison Team.
Along with referring to an IED explosion which had taken place on that highway on June 21 in Kwakta – at the border of Bishnupur and Churachandpur districts – he said that the situation in the border area had been “worsening” in the past few days.
I came to listen to all my brothers and sisters of Manipur.
People of all communities are being very welcoming and loving. It’s very unfortunate that the government is stopping me.
Manipur needs healing. Peace has to be our only priority. pic.twitter.com/WXsnOxFLIa
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 29, 2023
“Though the situation in the state has been improving overall, it has been worsening in the last two days. Because of the rain and relative peace, some people from the valley have been heading out to the fields for agriculture, even in areas close to the foothills. We advised them to go only when we coordinate properly with our police counterparts in Churachandpur, but they are early risers and have been going early. Then, in villages in the hills, there is suspicion whether they are really coming for agriculture or other activities, and they feel they must defend their villages, so they fire two or three rounds early in the morning. This morning itself at 5:30 am, two-three rounds were fired from the hill side in a village along the foothills here. In this scenario, after our assessment, we decided that it’s more advisable for the VIPs to travel by chopper instead… We could not take the risk,” he said.
Following the confrontation, the convoy returned to Imphal from where Rahul boarded a chopper to Churachandpur, where he reached around 4:30 pm and visited the relief camps in Greenwood Academy, Tuibuong and in Government College,Churachandpur. He also attended a short meeting with Civil Society Organisations there.
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