Manipur tribal body ITLF to meet Home Minister Amit Shah on August 8

A conglomerate of tribals in Manipur will meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah here on Tuesday and raise their five key demands, including a separate political administration and a mass burial in Churachandpur district of the Kuki-Zo community members killed in the ethnic violence since May 3.

A five-member delegation of the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF) will hold talks with the home minister and place the demands, ITLF secretary Muan Tombing told PTI over phone from Aizawl.

The team is expected to arrive in the national capital Monday evening.

"We have five main demands. Our political demand of total separation from Manipur should be sped up. As the burial of the bodies of the Kuki-Zo community members delayed, the bodies are now lying in Imphal and all the bodies should be brought to Churachandpur," he said.

About the other demands, Tombing said that the burial site at S. Boljang in Churachandpur should be legalised, all "Meitei state forces" should not be deployed in hill districts for the safety of the Kuki-Zo community members and tribal jail inmates in Imphal should be transfer to other states for their safety.

According to an ITLF memorandum, addressed to the union home minister and submitted through the headquarters of the 27 Sector, Assam Rifles, the tribal body said it had a long deliberation on the request of Shah to delay the burial for another five days with various stake-holders.

"We have agreed to consider the request of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for waiting another five days for the burial, provided the demands are met," the memorandum said.

The tribal group was planning to bury the bodies of the Kuki-Zo community victims of the violence at a place in Churachandpur but it was opposed by the Meitei community following which the MHA requested it to postpone the burial.

The ITLF leaders reached Aizawl, the capital of neighbouring Mizoram, from Churachandpur in Manipur and from there they were on their way to New Delhi.

Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga, on his Instagram account, has expressed hope that the talks will yield results.

He said the ITLF leaders held a day-long discussion on Saturday and consulted him on whether to respond to the invitation or not.

"I suggested they accept the invitation. I told them that it is a good opportunity to have a face-to-face discussion with the Home Minister," Zoramthanga said on his Instagram handle.

Shah had earlier extended an invitation to the group to hold a meeting with him in the national capital to discuss the situation in Manipur.

Ethnic clashes first broke out between Kukis and Meiteis in Manipur on May 3 and since then more than 160 people have lost their lives.