All Tribal Students’ Union Manipur condemns ‘terror and destruction’ unleashed in state

DIMAPUR: The All Tribal Students’ Union Manipur (ATSUM) on Wednesday strongly condemned the “terror and destruction” unleashed in the state in the aftermath of its Tribal Solidarity March last week.

In a press release “to clarify the nature of the crisis amidst all the bias and twisted stories circulated in the national media”, the tribal student body stated that it organised a democratic and peaceful rally on May 3 to oppose Meitei’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status following the Manipur High Court order directing the state government to recommend the inclusion of the community in the ST list.

Narrating the sequence of events leading to violence in Manipur, the ATSUM said that the Meitei Leepun started “Counter Blockade” on roads and highways leading to hill areas at 6 pm on May 2, a day prior to Tribal Solidarity March, and ‘selectively targeted a particular tribal community’.

The rally organized by the ATSUM ended at around 12:30 pm on May 3 but Meitei volunteers came around 2 pm in the afternoon and set fire to the Centenary Gate at Leisang in Churachandpur and beat up rally participants who returned home at Kangvai, it claimed, adding that the incident led to a fight between the two parties around 4 pm at Kangvai, before it escalated to burning of houses belonging to both sides in Torbung and Kangvai area.

“Following the violence in Kangvai area, mob led by Arambai Tenggol started attacking the Kuki tribal localities in Imphal and villages along the foothills at night. First, churches were attacked and burnt down and then private houses were torched and burnt to cinders. Villages along the foothills were razed to the ground,” read the press release.

“Kuki tribals were waylaid and those caught were mercilessly murdered. Quarters, which are not burnt, were ransacked and looted. Cash and jewelries kept inside the houses were looted. Even TVs, Fridges, sofas, beds and other household items were hauled away and stolen by the attackers,” it added.

The student body stated that the “violence of such scale and intensity would have been prevented had the government intervened at the outset” but its inaction led to the “massacre and arson”.

“Mobs were seen accompanied by state forces and the tribal people were left defenseless. The state government needs to shoulder the responsibilities for all that was happening in the state in the last few days,” it stated.

It said the ordeals suffered by the tribals and the nature of the crisis was concealed to the outside world as internet was shutdown.

“The narrative where tribal community is being portrayed as the instigator of the violence is a false narrative propagated by the majority community-controlled electronic and print media,” it said, adding that independent media and press from outside the state need to come and see the truth.

The ATSUM also appealed to the tribal communities of Manipur to ‘stand together in this challenging time and show solidarity to each other lest the unity of the tribal people would lie in tatters’.

“We shall continue to fight together against the injustice perpetrated against us. At the same time ATSUM call for sanity and appeal to all and sundry to stop the violence in the state,” it added.