Six killed as violence escalates in India’s Manipur

Six bodies of women and children were recovered as ethnic violence escalated between indigenous Christians and Meitei Hindus in India’s strife-torn Manipur state.

Several churches and homes, including those of legislators, were set on fire in the past three days, Church leaders say.

“We are living in a terrible situation. There is no guarantee for our lives and properties,” said a Church leader based in the troubled state in the northeastern region.

The leader, who did not want to be named due to safety concerns, told UCA News on Nov. 18 that the entire state was “under an undeclared emergency, and people were frightened to get out of their homes.”

Chief Minister N Biren Singh convened an emergency meeting on Nov. 18 as violence and arson continued in different parts of the state, and seven legislators of the National People’s Party (NPP), his government’s alliance partner, withdrew their support to the government.

However, Singh, a leader of the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, faces no immediate threat as his government still has a workable majority in the 60-member state assembly.

Angry mobs set fire to the residences of a couple of legislators. They tried to storm into the ancestral home of Singh in the Imphal valley following his failure to free three women and three children believed to have been kidnapped by tribal insurgents on Nov. 12.

The bodies of the six were recovered three days later from Jiribam district, the epicenter of fresh violence.

The Church leader said he disagreed with the tribal insurgents who abducted and killed vulnerable women and children.

“Whatever reasons might be, it cannot be justified,” he said.

The abduction was apparently in retaliation for the Nov. 11 killing of 11 Hmar tribal “village volunteers” whom the security agencies termed as “militants” and the alleged rape and murder of a 31-year-old Hmar tribal woman on Nov. 7 by alleged armed Meitei men.

The Hmar people are a smaller group within the Kuki tribal community.

The autopsy of the woman indicated severe torture before her alleged rape and burning.

The attackers also set on fire 17 homes adjacent to her house in Zairwan village in Jiribam district, according to media reports.

The violence led to the imposition of a curfew, a shutdown of the internet, and the closure of schools and business establishments.

Residents of the state capital, Imphal, said they were facing a shortage of vegetables and other essential commodities, and prices had skyrocketed.

“We have been facing this situation for over a week,” said a resident of Imphal.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) said Meitei militants on Nov. 16 burnt down “at least five churches, one school, a petrol pump and 14 homes belonging to the Kuki-Zo communities in Jiribam.”

In its Nov. 17 statement, the tribal body accused the security personnel deployed in the area of failing to protect them.

It also questioned “why are churches repeatedly being targeted.”

Some 360 Churches have been burnt since the conflict began “as if this is some kind of religious war,” the ITLF said.

The hilly state of Manipur bordering civil war-hit Myanmar has witnessed unprecedented violence since May 3 last year.

The long-standing tensions between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and mostly Christian Kuki people revolve around their claims over land and government jobs.

The state has continued to witness sporadic violence that claimed the lives of over 230 and displaced 60,000, a majority of them Christians.

The ITLF, in its statement, accused Arambai Tenggol, an extremist group of Meitei supporters, of unleashing fresh violence against tribal people and accused the state government of “fully supporting” them.

The tribal body also urged the federal government to clamp down on “extremist groups.”

“Once the attacks on tribal people stop, violence will dissipate. A long-term political solution must follow this,” it added.

The tribal body said if violence is allowed to continue unchecked, the suffering tribal people “will have no other choice but to retaliate in a more forceful manner.”

Indigenous people, mostly Christians, make up 41 percent of the 3.2 million people in the state, while Meiteis, who are 53 percent, control the government and the administration.

This article was originally published on https://www.ucanews.com/news/six-killed-as-violence-escalates-in-indias-manipur/107024