Union Home Minister Amit Shah met the members of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an influential Meitei civil society group, on Friday and urged them to initiate dialogue with responsible Kuki leaders for “peace-building,” the outfit said.
Meanwhile, 10 legislators from the Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in Manipur said on Friday that they had not been in touch with Chief Minister N. Biren Singh since violence erupted in the State on May 3. One of them, Textiles and Commerce Minister Nemcha Kipgen, wrote to the Manipur Speaker that she had been advised by security professionals to refrain from attending the session on August 29 due to the “volatile law and order situation in Imphal”.
Editorial | Festering wounds: On Manipur’s elusive peace
Khuarijam Athouba, a COCOMI functionary, told The Hindu that no final decision had been taken regarding Mr. Shah’s suggestion adding that they would engage only with “legitimate Kuki leaders” after consulting their people in Manipur.
“The Home Minister made an appeal in today’s meeting but several Kuki civil society groups have emerged since the violence began, we will not engage with people who crossed over from Myanmar,” Mr. Athouba said.
Assam Rifles (AR), the oldest paramilitary force deployed in Manipur, had registered a criminal case against the COCOMI on July 10 after the outfit gave a call to people “not to surrender weapons.”
More than 4,000 weapons have been looted from police armouries since May 3 when ethnic violence between the Kuki and Meitei people erupted in Manipur.
The Meitei group has demanded removal of AR from Manipur accusing it of partisan conduct.
The group held subsequent discussion with Tapan Kumar Deka, Director, Intelligence Bureau, and A.K Mishra, Security Adviser, northeast.
Kuki-Zo MLAs, including those from the BJP, said the Chief Minister’s claim of communicating with them might be a “ploy to sow seeds of mistrust and disunity” between the MLAs and their people.
On August 24, Mr. Singh said in an interview to The Hindu that he was in touch with the legislators from the tribal Kuki-Zo community and would provide adequate security for them to attend the Assembly session slated from August 29 in Imphal.
“The [Kuki] MLAs and Ministers, we are old friends, I am talking to them, I told them we cannot be separated. We have been together all these years and will be together in future as well. Only the illegal migrants cannot be accommodated,” Mr. Singh had said.
The MLAs said they would not attend the Assembly session as they feared for their lives.
“Of late, the Imphal valley had become a ‘Valley of Death’ for the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar people. The streets and roads of Imphal and its surrounding valley are dangerous .... even paramilitary personnel on duty are not spared, they were checked and verified by the so-called Meir Paibis. Our official quarters and private residences are either looted, attacked or burned by mobs,” the statement by the ten MLAs said.
Faced mob attack
Recalling the May 4 incident when Vungzagin Valte (61), a Kuki MLA from the BJP, also an adviser to Mr. Singh on tribal affairs, was physically assaulted by a mob when he was leaving after attending a meeting at the Chief Minister’s office in Imphal, the MLAs said that “so far no enquiry or arrest has been made, nor any progress of investigation is reported.”
“In fact, we do not want to repeat and face the same fate that our colleague had underwent. At this politically critical juncture, we do not have any intention to communicate with Chief Minister Biren Singh,” the MLAs said.
Also read | Naga body slams Kukis for ‘distorting’ Manipur’s history
Reiterating their demand for a separate administration, the MLAs said that on August 16 they submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding a separate Chief Secretary and police chief for the affected hill districts as temporary measures, pending the ongoing political dialogue of SoO (Suspension of Operation) groups with the Government of India.
