Violence Against Tribal Christians In Manipur Intensifies
Violence Against Tribal Christians In Manipur Intensifies: Despite military intervention, violence against the tribal Christian Kuki-Zo minority in Northeast India’s Manipur state has worsened since it began on May 3. The fighting has just taken eight more lives and injured 29 more people. To date, 131 Kuki-Zo Christians have been slain, while 200 communities and nearly 360 churches have been torched or destroyed.
According to The Print, the new occurrences occurred at the boundary between Bishnupur district, which is home to the Hindu majority Meitei community, and Churachandpur district, which is home to the Kuki-Zo Christian minority.
According to Kuki-Zo authorities, people from the Meitei community are only slain when they infiltrate tribal territory to launch lethal assaults.
Following a contentious court judgment directing the state to explore extending special economic perks and quotas traditionally designated for the indigenous Kuki-Zo people to the Meitei community, unrest occurred in Manipur. It would also grant the Meiteis, who are supported by the state government, the ability to purchase land in the highlands where the Kuki-Zo people live.
To impose buffer zones between the two settlements, the government has deployed approximately 50,000 soldiers, armed police, and other security forces. Despite these precautions, according to government estimates, mobs have stolen almost 4,000 rifles and half a million rounds of ammunition from Manipur police.
Lt. General P.C. Nair, director general of the federal paramilitary force Assam Rifles, described the situation as “unprecedented,” highlighting the “large number of weapons” within both communities as a key concern, according to The Wire. “Mobs surrounding forces and women blocking roads are new hurdles for the force trained to fight armed insurgents,” he said.
Nair added, “We are here only to curtail the levels of violence. But more importantly, we are talking to multiple civil society organizations and various stakeholders to get them to hold talks.”
The Supreme Court of India also remarked that there was “no law and order left in Manipur.”
Cases of violence have been shifted to courts in Assam. The state police’s role in controlling violence and allowing the “looting” of armories has been criticized.
More than 131 people from the Kuki-Zo community have been killed, and their 200 villages, 7,000 houses, and 360 churches have been destroyed or burned, according to the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, which says at least 41,425 people remain displaced.
However, the bodies of only 35 victims are in hospitals in the Kuki-Zo Churachandpur district, which the local people have named Lamka. Dozens of bodies are lying in hospitals in the Meitei-dominated Imphal area, where the majority of the Kuki-Zo victims were killed during the initial days of violence.
A tribal leader told CP earlier that the mass burial of the deceased Kuki-Zo people would be conducted after the bodies lying in Imphal were transported to Churachandpur.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party governs both Manipur and the federal government.
In July, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging the Indian government to urgently restore peace in Manipur.
“There have been concerns about politically motivated, divisive policies promoting Hindu majoritarianism and about an increase in activity by militant groups,” the resolution stated. There are also “accounts of partisan involvement by security forces in the killings, which have increased distrust in the authorities.”