New Delhi June 18 2023: Ethnic violence in India’s northeastern Manipur state has continued for more than a month, claiming over 100 lives and with mobs torching houses including those of the ruling party’s leaders.
Mobs set ablaze junior foreign minister Rajkumar Ranjan Singh’s house in the state’s capital Imphal last week and targeted homes and offices of other leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the Times of India reported Sunday. More than 100 people have died in the clashes that erupted last month while several homes and shops have been vandalized.
Tensions first erupted between some of the area’s largely-Christian tribal groups and the majority Meitei Hindu residents in early May over a demand that Meiteis also be granted access to forest lands, jobs and seats in educational institutions set aside for tribespeople under India’s affirmative action guarantees.
Even as troops march along the streets of Imphal to control the situation, fresh cases of violence have triggered anger among citizens and the opposition parties.
“Even as a beautiful border state of India is plunged into an unending spiral of raging fire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji has turned the other way,” Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Congress Party, said in a Twitter message on June 14, commenting on reports of fresh killings.
Modi hasn’t commented on the Manipur violence so far, although home minister Amit Shah has visited the state and held meetings with different ethnic groups to restore normalcy.
