UNLF chief RK Meghen set to return home after 44 years

Guwahati, Nov 27
Chairman of UNLF, banned Manipur-based insurgent group, Rajkumar Meghen is set to return to his home after 44 years. He will arrive in Imphal on Thursday, his son RK Chinglen said.
Released on November 9 from the Guwahati central jail, Meghen was taken away by the Intelligence Bureau and was kept at an undisclosed location in Delhi. Seventeen days later, United National Liberation Front (UNLF) Meghen along with his son and lawyer were released.
Meghen alias Sanayaima had left Manipur in 1975. He was arrested by the Bangladesh Police and handed over to India in 2010. The National Investigation Agency had then charged him and 18 other separatist leaders for 'waging war against the India' and 'raising funds by resorting to large-scale extortion from the Government and private bodies in Manipur'. In 2016, Meghen was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
However, his sentence was reduced owing to his contributions like setting up a library, a music school for the inmates and construction of a rock garden inside the Guwahati central jail.
Meghen was born on the September 21, 1944, as the second son of late RK Madhuryajit Singh and Laitonjam Ningol Hemabati Devi. He is the great grandson of Bir Tikendrajit Yuvraj, the hero of the Anglo Manipur War of 1891. Sana Yaima finished his high school from Ram Lal Paul and intermediate at DM College. He graduated from Saint Paul’s College Kolkata and also got an MA degree from Jadavpur University in International Relations.
In his post academic life, he never bothered about Government job, but started a women’s school at the precincts of his ancestral home at Yaiskul, Janmasthan. He also started a private printing press to serve the people through the use of truthful print media. He reportedly became a member of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) in 1967 and rose in the rank of the revolutionary organisation to become the general secretary in 1984.
During his stint as general secretary, he became the first Manipur revolutionary to address the Working Group of Indigenous People’s Population meeting at Geneva organised by the UN Human Rights Commission in 1995. In 1998, he became the chairman of UNLF.
He is reported to have initiated the formation of Manipur People’s Liberation Front (MPLF) in 1999.
He was arrested in 2010 and imprisoned for 10 years.
One day after he was released from prison, RK Meghen, was allegedly picked up by the NIA.
Meghen, also popularly known as Sanayaima, was earlier expected to arrive in Imphal on November 11.
Sources had then said that Meghen’s son RK Chinglen, and his lawyer M Gunedhor, too were “whisked away” to a Government guesthouse in Guwahati. They were then taken to Delhi.
According to sources, officials of the Union Home Ministry had then ‘requested ’ Meghen to not travel to Manipur, where the “situation is volatile”, with the Naga peace talks yet to be concluded.
Talks between the Indian Government and the NSCN-IM have triggered concern and tensions in Manipur, which has five districts dominated by the Nagas. Various civil society organisations, organised under an umbrella body called COCOMI, have taken out protest marches against the Naga peace process since the talks began on October 24.
While the Indian Government has repeatedly assured the Manipur Government that the State will not be bifurcated, the NSCN-IM’s demand for a pan Naga autonomous body — implying that Naga areas of Manipur can circumvent the State Government’s jurisdiction — has led to apprehension and panic in the State.
A member of a civil society organisation had then said that given the immense influence that Meghen wields in Manipur, the Government of India must be wary of his mobilising ability and hence ‘detained’ him.
News 18 and Our Staff Reporter