Manipur Crisis Worsens As Kuki-Zo MLAs Accuse CM Biren Singh Of 'One-Sided' Approach Favouring Meitei Community

A day after Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh condemned the 'barbaric violence by Kuki terrorists,' 10 Kuki-Zo members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) accused the state government of a 'one-sided' approach.

Singh chaired a meeting on Monday (18 November), which was attended by 26 National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MLAs but skipped by several MLAs including some from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Releasing a statement against the resolutions passed during this meeting, 10 MLAs, seven from the BJP, one Independent and two from the Kuki People’s Alliance, accused the state government of taking 'undue advantage' of the Jiribam incident.

On 11 November, three women and three children from a Meitei family were abducted in the Jiribam district and later killed by allegedly Kuki terrorists. This escalated ethnic tensions in the state.

"Time and again, the one-sided state government has taken undue advantage of the Jiribam incident in suppressing and curtailing the rights of the disadvantaged tribal community," the statement said.

The statement also condemned the demand for "mass operations against Kuki militants" and said that mass operations against just one community is a biased approach, instead, mass operations must be conducted to recover all illegal arms from all militia groups.

Over the meeting calling on the Centre to "review the imposition of AFSPA" in six police station areas of the valley, the MLAs argued that it is actually "long overdue" for AFSPA to be reinstated across all 13 police station areas in the Meitei-majority valley, which remain exempt.

The Wednesday statement demanded the declaration of the Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun as Unlawful Organisations under relevant laws and accused them of being aided by the state police and, in the case of Jiribam, by the CRPF.

Notably, the CM had praised the CRPF in his Tuesday statement for their timely and decisive response in Jiribam that repelled the attack and neutralised 10 of those terrorists on the spot and saving hundreds of lives.

A rebel BJP MLA accused CM Singh of not having good intentions to solve the crisis and urged for conversation between the two sides. He said that they skipped the meeting because they are never asked for proposals or suggestions.