Manipur’s Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum delegation meets Amit Shah in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Representatives of the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), an influential umbrella body of tribal groups in Manipur, met Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday.

“We will share details shortly,” ITLF spokesperson Ginza Vualzong said, declining to immediately go into the details of the forum’s discussions. The home ministry also is yet to make a statement on the talks. The delegation also met Intelligence Bureau (IB) director Tapan Deka on Tuesday evening.

The ministry of home affairs on Saturday invited ITLF for talks as fresh violence broke out in Manipur after the tribal group announced its plan to organise mass burial of Kuki-Zomi people killed in ethnic violence, people familiar with the matter said. Shah met different Kuki and Meitei groups during his visit to the state in May last week and urged them to maintain peace.

Also Read: Genesis of the decades-old Meitei-Kuki divide in Manipur

The burial plan was postponed for a week on August 3 after the Manipur high court ordered that the status quo should be maintained at the proposed burial site in Churachandpur district. Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai also appealed to “all concerned to maintain peace and communal harmony”.

The meetings in Delhi came as the northeastern state continued to remain engulfed in ethnic violence. On Saturday, five people were killed in two incidents, prompting security forces to engage in operations across the state.

It was in this context that the four-member ITLF team, which met Amit Shah on Wednesday, started out from Churachandpur on Sunday, drove down to Mizoram capital Aizwal 350km away rather than take the flight from Imphal airport just 80km away, a person familiar with the matter said.

Also Read: More forces rushed to tense Manipur; tribal body likely to meet Amit Shah

The northeastern state has been gripped by ethnic clashes – primarily between the tribal Kukis, which mostly reside in the hill districts such as Churachandpur, and the majority Meiteis, the dominant community in Imphal Valley.

Clashes first broke out on May 3 in Churachandpur town after Kuki groups called for protests against a proposed tweak to the state’s reservation matrix, granting scheduled tribe (ST) status to the Meitei community. Violence quickly engulfed the state where ethnic fault lines run deep, displacing tens of thousands of people who fled burning homes and neighbourhoods into jungles, often across state borders. Over 160 people have died in the violence over the last three months.

Ahead of the meeting in Delhi, the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), a prominent conglomerate of Meitei civil society organisations, issued a statement on Tuesday condemning ITLF’s scheduled meeting with Amit Shah. It said the meeting would offend the sentiments of the people in Manipur because members of ITLF were involved in violence.

Meanwhile, nine Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators from Manipur also reached Delhi on Wednesday to meet senior party leaders.