Fresh violence in India’s Manipur amid peace talks
Unknown gunmen targeted a police station and set on fire five houses of Meiteis
Updated: October 21, 2024 11:50 AM GMT
Peace talks in India’s strife-torn Manipur state have suffered a setback after fresh violence broke out when unknown gunmen attacked a police station and set on fire five houses.
The attackers opened fire with highly sophisticated weapons at the Borobekera police station in Jiribam district in the early hours of Oct. 19, local officials said.
However, the army and state police repealed the attack, and there were no human casualties. A search operation was launched for the attackers across the district.
Media reports blamed the armed groups of indigenous Kuki tribal people, who are mostly Christians, for the attack as the houses of the Meitei Hindus were set on fire.
A Christian leader disagreed with the “misleading” reports and said “unknown miscreants” had “set on fire a closed Christian school at the district headquarters on Oct. 18,” a day before the Kuki people attacked the police station and Meitei houses.
“We do not know who is behind the violence,” he told UCA News on Oct. 21 on condition of anonymity due to security reasons.
He said the attacks appeared to be an attempt to “derail the peace initiative taken by the federal government.”
“People in the state are fed up with violence and bloodshed. They want peace,” the Christian leader added.
The sectarian clashes, which began on May 3 last year, have left about 230 dead, displaced over 60,000, mostly tribal Christian people, and destroyed over 360 churches and Christian institutions.
Among the 3.2 million people in the state, 41 percent are indigenous Kuki-Zo people, mostly Christians, and the influential and wealthy Meiteis Hindus account for 53 percent.
The northeastern state borders the civil war-hit Myanmar.
The current violence began when the Kuki people objected to a government plan to grant tribal status to the Meitei Hindus, helping them access reservation benefits under India’s affirmation action policy.
The Kuki people allege that the official tribal status will also allow the influential Meitei community to buy land in their indigenous areas, which currently can be sold only to tribal people.
They have been alleging that the pro-Hindu government of Chief Minister N Biren Singh is supporting the Meitei Hindus.
They also demand a separate administration for the hilly districts in the state, where the Christian-dominated tribal people live.
At least 15 lawmakers from the warring Hindu Meitei and tribal Kuki-Zo and Naga communities attended the first-ever peace talks in the national capital New Delhi on Oct. 15, convened by the federal interior ministry.
However, reports said Singh and federal Home Minister Amit Shah were conspicuous by their absence at the peace talks.
