In a fresh interlocutory application (IA) filed on June 9, the tribal welfare body alleged that since the last hearing of the issue in apex court, 81 more persons belonging to the Kuki tribe have been killed and 31,410 Kukis displaced.
Further, 237 churches and 73 administrative quarters have been torched and 141 villages destroyed, the Court was told.
“The assurances of the authorities are not useful anymore and made in a non-serious fashion and are not even intended to be implemented. The reason why this hon’ble court ought not to rely anymore on the empty assurances given by UOI (Union of India) is because both the UOI and the Chief Minister of the State have embarked jointly on a communal agenda for the ethnic cleansing of the Kukis,” the forum submitted.
It stressed that the media coverage portraying the violence as a clash between two tribal communities is far from the truth. The attackers are backed by the ruling party in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the forum has contended.
“Such a narrative misses the fact that the two communities have co-existed for a long time despite their sometime deep-rooted differences and, secondly, that the unique situation presently existing is of a couple of armed communal groups linked to the party in power in the State, carrying out a predesigned communal attack on the tribals. The ‘clash’ narrative camouflages the presence of these two groups behind all the attacks and renders them immune from prosecution thereby emboldening them to carry on further attacks,” the forum said.
Therefore, without such groups being arrested and prosecuted, ‘any semblance of peace will be fragile‘, the application added.
Pertinently, the application flagged the involvement of top politicians and drug kin-pins in poppy cultivations that are dependent on tribal workers.
“Since the last decade or so, the emergence of powerful drugs mafias took control of the drug trade in Manipur. Without specifically naming the drug lords or the communities they come from, and only by way of a sample, one prominent drug lord is a relative of the former Chief Minister of Manipur. The other prominent drug lord is a relative of the present Chief Minister,” the forum alleged.
Politicians who double up as drug lords, along with middlemen, are the masterminds and beneficiaries of such a trade, it was stated.
Further, they make harmful allegations against tribal cultivators, the forum added.
Source: Barandbench
