New Delhi: Monday saw fresh clashes and tensions between Meiteis and Kuki’s in Imphal, the capital of Manipur. According to NDTV, groups from the two communities came to blows in the New Checkon area in Imphal, over space in a new market.
The police have reportedly arrested three individuals over their alleged involvement in the incident at New Checkon.
A mob set fire to houses in the Imphal East district.
According to the Indian Express, while the curfew had been relaxed a little with a break from 6 am to 4 pm, that has now been tightened to 6 am to 2 pm.
Authorities had already announced that the internet shutdown in the state will be extended to May 26.
While reports continue to come in about the tensions between the two communities, sparked by Meiteis’ demand that they be granted Scheduled Tribe status, chief minister N. Biren Singh has remarked that there is no animosity between the two group and the violence is because of resistance to the government’s policy of forest conservation and poppy clearing.
The violence in Manipur has been on for several weeks now, starting from May 3.
The Manipur government first banned internet services on May 3 after ethnic violence broke out between the state’s numerically dominant Meitei community and its tribal communities, killing over 70 people and displacing 26,000 others.
A few days before that, the Manipur High Court directed the state government to recommend that the Union tribal affairs ministry grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Meiteis.
Having ST status would entitle the Meiteis to reservations in public jobs and educational institutes, and give them access to forest lands. But the state’s existing tribal communities fear that this will reduce the reservation available to them and endanger the lands they have lived on for centuries…
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