A Year On, Prayer Meets, Protests Keep Security Forces On Edge In Manipur

A year after ethnic violence erupted in Manipur, the border state remains tense. Prayer meets and protests kept the security forces on the edge.

"Many protests are still going on. People are remembering their near and dear ones, but so far no violent incident has been reported," a senior government officer told NDTV.

He said the cases of arson, firing, injuries and deaths are slowly declining. "The situation is better, but is complex," he added.

As per a report sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the state government said a lot of work has been done to stop drugs smuggling, but the issue of illegal immigrants is still a cause of worry.

The Centre has asked the state authorities to be on specific alert after the state started the process of first phase of deportation of illegal immigrants from Myanmar. "We fear backlash and we alerted state police accordingly," another official stated.

So far 77 have been deported back. "The state government is continuing the identification of illegal immigrants and at the same time biometric data are being recorded. Let's keep our borders and country secure," Chief Minister N Biren Singh posted on X.

Meanwhile, a year after ethnic violence erupted in Manipur, the clean-up of records has brought down the total number of violence-related first information reports (FIRs) from over 11,000 to around 3,000.

"Many duplicate cases were registered. Now we have amalgamated the records and that's why numbers have come down," a government source said.

He said many zero FIRs were filed when violence erupted, irrespective of jurisdiction. "They all were later transferred to the police stations where the crimes took place," the officer said, adding looted weapons are still a cause of worry. "Around 6,000 weapons were looted but despite various efforts about 1,800 have been recovered or surrendered by the civilians," he said.

"Violence will keep erupting. The force alone cannot control the situation. It needs to be handled sensitively," a senior officer said.

He said the present regime in the state has not been able to assure communities rather have stoked fault lines. "The debate of insider vs outsider is more vocal in the region," he adds. 

"It's a complex situation and political leaders and various communities need to start speaking to each other to bridge gaps then only we can move forward," a serving officer told NDTV, requesting anonymity. 

As many as 220 lives have been lost in Manipur violence; 50,000 have been displaced.