The situation gets worse if the child comes from a broken family and has been separated from parents. Separated children are at risk of every form of exploitation, whether it involves insurgency, trafficking or drug peddling. UPDS and DHD offered assistance to many families during the deadly riots that engulfed Karbi Anglong in Assam during November–December 2005, when rival militant outfits not only attacked each other but also raided many villages, resulting in displacement of people and huge loss of life and property. In Manipur, in the early 1990s, Naga rebels went on a rampage against Kuki villages in some hill districts, killing or displacing hundreds. Within a couple of years, there was a proliferation of Kuki militant outfits in the state and the existing ones like the Kuki National Army (KNA) had their ranks swelled.
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Children are brought from the parents willingly, and cases of coercion are quite rare in the Northeast. On several occasions, women have also decided to join and don the battle fatigue along with adult males and children. Sometimes, when a militant outfit is about to lay down arms, village headmen would be told by commanders to gather youths who could be shown as cadres and placed in designated camps. Designated camps are set up by the rebels in areas of stronghold, where they have a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding villages. These villages are the nerve centres of support for the group, and care is taken by both sides to ensure a smooth relation. But some villages erupted in anger in Imphal Valley when the banned People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) abducted a few children on their way from school in July 2008.15
Investment in children by a militant outfit is minimal, and returns are high”¦
Following an uproar, the outfit responded by parading a few teenagers in front of journalists in a hideout who said they had joined the group on their own volition. Parents of these children, however, were in no doubt that their wards were picked up forcefully by the militants and intimidated to join the outfit. There were rallies by school children at several places in the hill districts of Manipur condemning the incidents. Later, as it turned out that PREPAK was in dire need of cadres since it had grown weak after a faction identifying itself as the United People’s Party of Kangleipak (UPPK) walked out of the organisation to launch an independent movement and set up camps in Myanmar. The bigger groups active in Imphal Valley, like the PLA and UNLF, have always been able to attract more cadres than PREPAK and smaller groups like the Kangleipak Communist Party and Kangla Yawol Kanna Lup.
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