Team News Riveting
Imphal, November 13
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Left-wing extremist group reportedly backed by China, on Saturday evening the claimed responsibility for the attack that killed Commanding Officer of 46 Battalion of Assam Rifles Colonel Viplav Tripathi.
Besides the officer, his wife Anuja, their 6-year-old son Abeer, and four jawans were also killed when Colonel Tripathi’s convoy was ambushed by PLA militants near the Sehkan village in Churachandpur district while returning from the Behiang Coy post at about 10 am on Saturday. IEDs were used by the militants before the Assam Rifles personnel engaged them in a firefight.
PLA is a militant group in Manipur demanding a separate homeland. It is a member of the Manipur People’s Liberation Front (MPLF), an umbrella body of three separatist organisations, including People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) and UNLF.
The outlawed initially issued the statement through Facebook post stating that the attack was carried out as a joint operation with cadres of the Manipur Naga People’s Front (MNPF).
In a joint release later, the outfits claimed that six personnel of Assam Rifles, including 46 AR Commanding Officer Colonel Viplav Tripathi, were killed in the attack, while many were injured. The group, however, said it was “most unfortunate that the CO’s wife and minor child were part of the convoy” that was attacked, in a statement signed by Roben Khuman of the PLA/RPF and Thomas Numai of the MNPF.
After splitting from the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), N Bisheshwar Singh formed the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, on September 25, 1978, in an attempt to “liberate and turn Manipur into an independent socialist state.”
According to records, he “formulated a two-fold objection – to liberate the Eastern Region of India comprising the States of Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura and the Union Territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh through a carefully planned revolutionary uprising and to use this as a base for ‘liberating’ the rest of India”.
He emphasised the need for a “War of Independence” with Chinese support on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and Mao’s thoughts. PLA also appealed to the Naga and Mizo ‘revolutionaries’ to jointly fight against the common enemy.
In 1989, the PLA formed a political body called the Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) to prop up an alternative to mainstream parties. The RPF runs a government-in-exile in Bangladesh, as per the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), which maintains a comprehensive list of insurgent outfits operating in India.
It now has four divisions: Sadar Hill West areas of the Valley of Manipur, Sadar Hill areas in the eastern Valley, the entire hill areas in Manipur and the entire Imphal area. Each division has a commander, lieutenants, sergeant and lance corporals in its ranks, equipped with arms.
