“I want you to consider this as it doesn’t help either community to have these weapons in circulation.” “The other community has promised to surrender their weapons if you do too,” he added. “Are you sure that none of you have any weapons that you would like to surrender?” a senior officer asked a Kuki gathering at a village outside Imphal on Monday. According to villagers, Meitei mobs armed with guns and petrol cans then attacked Kuki settlements in the hills.Īuthorities are concerned there could be more reprisal attacks “as both communities have now accumulated weapons”, an army officer said. Violence erupted in the regional capital Imphal and elsewhere, with protestors setting fire to vehicles and buildings. The spark for the latest ethnic clash was a protest about plans to give the Meitei “Scheduled Tribe” status.Ī form of affirmative action to combat structural inequality and discrimination, that classification would give them guaranteed quotas of government jobs and college admissions. The far-flung states of northeast India - sandwiched between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar - have long been a tinderbox of tensions between different ethnic groups. “Those animals they couldn’t take alive, they killed and took away as meat. The raiders stole residents’ cattle and poultry, Sanatomba said. The towering village church, a school building, and even a jackfruit tree were set on fire by the attackers. The rest of the village suffered a similar fate, its three settlements littered with broken doors, burnt-down water tanks, and forced-open metal trunks. “She told me to come here and look for anything I can find,” he says, his hands and feet covered in black soot. They are Kuki, and he is sure she and her family will never be able to return. Thousands of troops have been deployed to restore order, while around 23,000 residents have fled their homes for the safety of ad-hoc army-run camps for the displaced. More than 50 people have been killed in the hilly border region in clashes between the majority Meitei people, who are mostly Hindus, and the mainly Christian Kuki tribe. But now everything she shared with her husband, four children and other family members is gone forever.” “That was her room and she kept her TV there, the fridge there, the almirah (cupboard) for clothes there. “This used to be my sister’s kitchen,” the 20-year-old says. Sanatomba picked through the ruins of his sister’s home in the northeastern state of Manipur, trying to salvage anything of value, but could only recover a traditional stool. But ethnic violence has reduced the village itself to little more than smouldering ashes. The road to Heiroklian is smooth and freshly laid, with a sign proclaiming it part of an Indian government development initiative.
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