00:00 In the last couple of days, we have been talking, covering Manipur and Manipur clashes.
00:05 In fact, we have been covering for last two months, but in the last couple of days,
00:09 we have been doing intensely. Now, a couple of questions that popped up.
00:13 One is, why could not the police control the clashes in Manipur? Were not they capable enough?
00:22 Did not they have weapons? Did not they have manpower? Why were not they capable? Two and a
00:26 half months and still the clashes are on. Two, we wanted to figure out as to, are the
00:34 cookies solely responsible for the poppy cultivation in Manipur? Are they to be blamed?
00:42 Like it has been made to sound? Is that fair? That is point two I wanted to understand.
00:48 The point three I wanted to understand is, where did this weapon come from? Are these
00:55 weapons coming from other countries or neighboring countries? Are these coming from within the
01:01 country? Where are these weapons coming from? These miscreants seem to be having quite
01:05 sophisticated weapons. So, these are three questions that I have been constantly asking
01:10 and I wanted some answers to them. And today I have a very eminent guest. Eminent because
01:20 I have Miss Brinda who was the Assistant Superintendent of Police in Manipur. Miss
01:28 Brinda is a person who actually called foul against the Benin Singh government and I will tell you why.
01:35 Miss Brinda was a person who actually waged war against drugs. In fact, she was offered the
01:42 gallantry medal for this fight of hers by the Chief Minister himself. She waged war against
01:49 drug and incidentally she caught a drug lord whom the Chief Minister, according to her,
01:55 the Chief Minister pressurized her to release. The Chief Minister ensured that this drug lord
02:01 was released from the prison. Brinda gave her gallantry award back. Currently, she has joined
02:10 politics. She works with the Janata Dal United and she is going to be one of the most honest and
02:16 one of the most straightforward officers in Manipur. So, I am going to talk to Brinda,
02:21 try getting answers to all these questions because I am sure she is the most qualified
02:25 to answer all these questions and that is what this interview is all about.
02:29 Let us get right into the interview.
02:31 Namaskar. Miss Brinda, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us.
02:40 And in fact, I am quite honored to have you. Like I told you before the shoot and I tell you on
02:46 record that I am a huge fan of yours. I have been following your work and I really admire
02:51 the kind of work you do, ma'am. So, let us get into the show. As a professional police officer
02:57 and one of the good ones at that, tell me, do you think, if the police wanted,
03:03 could Manipur violence be controlled? Absolutely. It should have been controlled.
03:10 If the police really wanted, if there was command from the Home Minister, then it should have been
03:17 completely controlled. What was the problem? What went wrong is that command and control,
03:23 there was something wrong between the command. The command was even on the Home Department.
03:30 So, we have to find out what went wrong in the command there. What was the command from the Home
03:37 Minister, who happens to be the State Minister of the State, on the State Police with regard to the
03:42 violence that broke out? Where was their so-called intelligence failure? And why did the police
03:50 fail to respond effectively on time when they had ample of opportunities and time
03:56 before things went out of control? Would it be intelligence failure or would it be
04:02 looking the other way? See, there cannot be intelligence failure as claimed by the government
04:07 because violence of this magnitude cannot happen overnight. This could have taken days and weeks
04:18 for its preparation and being a border state, there are multiple intelligence agencies of the state
04:24 in the center of, in Manipur functioning. And the head of the state, the State Minister,
04:32 has been informed of any intelligence, of any untoward incident that might come up from time
04:42 to time. And what's very surprising is that nobody has brought up to the notice of the public till
04:51 now is that on the 3rd of May, when the incident, the day the incident broke out,
04:55 there was this rapid action forces everywhere in Inphal town. That was the day the violence broke
05:04 out in the, in the, by noon and later part of the day, it had escalated. So later on, the minister
05:15 said that there was intelligence failure. So what I noticed on the day was I particularly remember
05:23 what was the scene in Inphal on that particular day was there was rapid action forces everywhere
05:29 in Inphal town because I took my son for his last chemo to the hospital on this day, it was around
05:40 10 o'clock. And then I was surprised to see so many rapid action forces on the road, on the highway,
05:48 on the streets of Inphal. And I wondered, oh, well, what is wrong? What is the situation that
05:56 we are suddenly seeing this central forces down? And then when we come, I came back from the
06:05 hospital that was in the afternoon, then there were many more number of rapid action forces.
06:11 And by evening, things have escalated. And it was all over the news that, you know,
06:18 violence had broken out in Surachanpur. And later on, because of effective response from the government
06:26 of Manipur, things went out of control and it took a community turn and it went bloody.
06:32 And in the latter part, the minister admitted that there was intelligence failure. So, as a police,
06:38 my question is, if there was intelligence failure, then why was there deployment of
06:43 rapid action forces in Inphal on the morning of 3rd of May?
06:48 Another question I want to ask you as a police officer, when an incident like this, where you
06:55 parade it to innocent girls on the streets, an incident like this can go unreported,
07:02 can go without an FIR? Does it ever happen? No, it cannot go. It cannot go. If the law and order
07:09 is in place and the police department is working effectively, then it will never go unreported.
07:15 This is the worst form of crime. It should be reported. And in a violent, it is a serious
07:23 violence and in such violence, women are naturally targeted, women and children,
07:28 and the women are always sexually targeted in all forms of violence, including war.
07:33 So, they couldn't take adequate care to protect the women from being targeted sexually, from being
07:40 abused, and which they refused, which they failed to. And they even did not take obedience of the
07:48 case on time. And we should find out if the government and the chief minister had information
07:54 on this video beforehand, because they are police department functioning quite well and they are
08:03 taking care of the law and order. And this kind of sensitive incidents and reports that have been
08:09 there, which is the purview of the government. So, the fact that the chief minister says,
08:15 I didn't even know about this, that is what he had mentioned. I just came to know about it
08:20 recently. Is there any credence to that statement? If he doesn't know about serious matter,
08:30 as he is not fit to be in the sphere, then he should give it up to somebody else who is more
08:37 fit to be in the sphere and will be able to control things. That is a total lie. He was using
08:44 internet, he was using Facebook, he has access to internet. How can he so blatantly lie to the
08:51 public when the public is suffering so much, when the whole world knows what is taking place here.
08:57 This entire thing about where does this militant, where does this miscreant get their guns and
09:07 weapons from, ma'am? Is it coming internally? Is it being taken internally? Or is it coming from
09:12 some external, some other country? For border communities who are
09:17 warring on each other, they are being armed. For the border communities, weapons are coming in,
09:24 it has been reported in the media also, that weapons have come into Manipur
09:28 clandestinely. It has been there, reported many times. So, weapons are coming from outside,
09:36 from Myanmar, that is automatically from China and weapons that have been looted from the state
09:41 armory. It has to be under the cognizance of the state Home Minister, who happens to be the state
09:46 minister, without his, you know, active consent, patronage, this amount of, this magnitude of
09:56 looting from the state armory could not have taken place. Is it that simple to
10:00 loot from a state armory? I mean, is that how our police functions?
10:06 So, that's the question. The police are armed, police stations are armed, battalions are armed,
10:11 they are guarded, there are sentries over there, and there is still intelligence. And the state
10:16 has already broken out in communal class and people were starved already at that time. And
10:23 the state Home Department should have taken adequate care to protect all its battalions
10:28 and police stations. So, looting state armory so easily is not comprehensible if it is not
10:36 without the approval of the concerned Home Minister. The state had declared war on drugs,
10:42 which is very nice. But the fact is, somewhere down the line, the Kukizho community thought
10:48 that they were targeted. You are one person who won a gallantry award and you are the only person,
10:54 only police officer to win a gallantry award and you have been fighting, waging a war against drugs
10:59 all your career. Tell me ma'am, is it all Kukizho's fault that poppy is cultivated in Manipur?
11:09 See, number one, this so-called war on drugs, these are just claims, I was to show to the world
11:19 that the government of Manipur is doing something. If the head of the government is seriously
11:25 doing its war on drugs, then first thing is something that we have always been forgetting
11:31 to recall, recollect, that he should not have pressured me into letting off an arrested
11:39 agency chairman whom I arrested with lots of drugs and case and he should not have pressured me at
11:46 all. He facilitated the acquittal of the whole arrested lot and there it was already proven that
11:59 this minister is not concerned about the effects of drugs on the society and the state at large.
12:05 So under the table, he is actively protecting and patronizing them. So there was never war on drugs,
12:14 everything is a hoax and this is simply proven by the fact that no kingpin has been arrested
12:22 in any of these cases so far. Who are the kingpins that have been arrested? We have to investigate
12:29 that. We have to do an inquiry on that. And number two, for poppy plantation, it's a huge
12:37 mafia, a mafia in which the government, many politicians, many drug lords, including the
12:49 government of Manipur at many different levels because of its nexus with the militants and the
12:54 suspension of operation. And yes, not all the cookies are responsible for the poppy mafia,
13:04 but majority of them and most importantly, the mummies influx that have been pumped into the
13:13 state of Manipur for the poppy cultivation funded by the drug money are responsible for the poppy
13:22 mafia. Influx is very alarming because we are not blaming the native cookies who have settled here
13:33 in Manipur for a long time. All the communities are taking part in the drug cartel, be it the
13:39 imported drugs or the poppy cartel, all the communities in their respective
13:45 capacities are taking part in it. But in terms of proportion, yes, proportion is very high from
13:54 the poppy community, especially from the influx in terms of labor and in terms of
14:01 control of the areas under poppy cultivation. That is true. And it's nexus with the militants
14:08 which are on suspension of operation, which are all cookies.
14:11 Ma'am, you arrested a kingpin, you arrested a kingpin, you were pressurized to let him off.
14:18 What was that, ma'am? Can you tell us that incident?
14:23 Yes, I arrested a former ADC chairman from the Hill District. The minister ordered,
14:33 in the very next day, the minister ordered me to let him off in exchange for his wife and his son
14:38 because he turned out to be the right-hand man of his second wife, Ollis, who is the elected
14:46 family from Sandel constituency right now. He actively pressured me and he pressured the DGP
14:54 to order me and my SP to remove the starship from the port so that the accused would be let off on
15:00 bail on the completion of the mandatory 180 days of submission of starship,
15:09 filling with the accused will be automatically let off on bail. So, this is what took place.
15:15 So, obviously, blaming the cookies for this wouldn't be viable, isn't it? Because it is
15:21 the ministry. Collectively blaming the cookies is very wrong. Collectively blaming the whole
15:25 cookies is very wrong. Not all the cookies are involved in it, just like all the rest of the
15:30 communities. We all are participating, be it the natives or indigenous or who are coming from
15:36 outside. We are all taking part in the drug mafia in varying capacities, in different proportions.
15:41 Plugging all the cookies together is the theme for War on Drugs, paramount to struggling off
15:50 the responsibility of the thinker of things effectively and dividing people on communal lines,
15:56 and the effect of which will be borne by the present generation and the future generations
16:02 because we are not dealing with the issue effectively and it is serving only the best
16:06 of the few and those in the government who want to perpetuate their government and
16:12 civilize their speech. It is the only purpose we are serving.
16:17 Next, last question to you. Why did you give away your gallantry award? What was the feeling
16:23 inside? What made you hand over such a prestigious award? You were the only person who got it from
16:30 the narcotics section, weren't you? Yeah, because of the case that I cited before,
16:40 the accused were blatantly acquitted. All the trials were blatantly acquitted and the
16:51 minister expressed that he was satisfied with the outcome of the case. So, I felt that
16:57 I was no longer fit to hold that honorable medal that would have made me feel that I was letting
17:07 my state and the people of Manipur down by holding on to that medal anymore because I failed to
17:14 deliver justice to the case that I worked so hard and in which the people of Manipur had so much
17:22 respect. So, eventually I had to return it. I was better without it. I really hope, ma'am,
17:28 your words becomes inspiration for a lot of youngsters who are looking at
17:32 police and administrative services. I hope your words become inspiration for that. Thank you so
17:38 much for talking to me, ma'am. Thank you so much for talking to me. Indeed, a pleasure talking to you.
17:55 Thank you.
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