Manipur Congress questions government's claims of talks with Kuki-Meitei groups to resolve ethnic conflict

The Manipur Congress, on September 18 ruled out any evidence on the ground of the government's talks with Kuki and Meitei groups aiming to resolve the ethnic conflict in the state.
    
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Tuesday said that the government was holding talks with both Meitei and Kuki communities to ensure lasting peace. He further added that the government has begun fencing the country's border with Myanmar to check infiltration, which was the root cause for the trouble.
    
Responding to Shah's statement, Manipur Congress working president Kh Devbrata Singh told reporters, "Shah has claimed that the government is holding talks with both Meitei and Kuki groups to resolve the crisis in the state. But there is no evidence of such talks on the ground. There is a lack of transparency in his statement."
    
"The Centre needs to provide details of the groups involved in the dialogue as there are numerous groups in the (Imphal) Valley. Talks with one group alone will not be sufficient. It is hard to believe that dialogue is happening as nothing can be seen on the ground level. We demand to know which groups are involved in the talks," he said.
    
On the recent statement of Chief Minister N Biren Singh about the involvement of "foreign hands" in the conflict, the senior Congress leader said that such a claim, however, was not made in Shah's statement.
    
"The CM had recently said that the arrest of a militant of KNA (B) outfit showed the involvement of foreign hands in the conflict. However, there was no such claim in Shah's statement. We think the claim would have been more credible had the Centre said that foreign players were involved in the crisis," he said.
    
The Congress leader also demanded a clarification from the state government about a purported official document, allegedly signed by secretary to the CM, N Geoffrey and addressed to the DGP stating that 900 trained Kuki militants have moved to the hills adjoining Imphal Valley and were planning to carry out coordinated attacks on Meitei villages around September 28.
   
 "The official document circulating on social media has created panic in the fringe areas of Imphal Valley and there have been reports of construction of bunkers to protect life and properties. We demand a clarification from the chief minister and the secretary to the CM about it," he said.
    
More than 200 people have been killed and hundreds rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kukis since May last year.
    On Tuesday, Shah said that barring three days of violence last week, the overall situation in Manipur has been calm and the government has been working to restore peace in the restive northeastern state.
    
"We are talking to the Kuki and Meitei groups. We have prepared a roadmap and will take all possible steps (to ensure peace)," he had said.
    
Shah said that in the first 100 days of the Modi 3.0 government, work on fencing the India-Myanmar border, which is the root cause of the problem, has begun.
   
 The Union home minister said that the government has already scrapped the India-Myanmar Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allowed people residing close to the border between the two countries to venture up to 16 km into each other's territory without any documents.
(With inputs from PTI)