Kuku Students Organisation spokesperson and Manipur Chief Minister
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh today congratulated the Assam Rifles for what he said was the arrest of a "Burmese national" who is allegedly a member of the Myanmar-based insurgent group Kuki National Army (Burma), or KNA(B).
The Kuki Students' Organisation (KSO-GHQ), however, said the man being referred to by the Chief Minister as a member of the KNA(B) is a registered refugee, who fled from the conflict in Myanmar.
"I really appreciate the activities of the Assam Rifles who arrested one Burmese national, KNA(B). As a Chief Minister I have been continuously saying since the beginning that the present crisis in Manipur has a foreign hand. Some people believe it, some don't. I appreciate the Assam Rifles for apprehending the foreign national," Mr Singh, who belongs to the ruling BJP and the valley-dominant Meitei community, told reporters in the state capital Imphal today.
His comment drew sharp criticism from the KSO, whose spokesperson told NDTV that the young man who the Chief Minister called a KNA(B) member was indeed from Myanmar, but registered in the official records along with his thumb prints and other details as a refugee. The KSO spokesperson said the Assam Rifles knows the man is a registered refugee.
The Assam Rifles and the Manipur Police have not given a statement on the matter.
Thousands of Myanmar nationals have crossed into Manipur and neighbouring Mizoram, fleeing the conflict between pro-democracy ethnic rebels and the junta. The Assam Rifles guards the Indo-Myanmar border as well as conduct counter-insurgency operations.
"The KSO general headquarters is shocked and surprised at the same time because someone as the Chief Minister, without inquiring more details about what's happening, made such a silly judgment. The apprehended person... who is from Myanmar - of course he is a foreigner - but has been here registered as a refugee, which was accepted by the Assam Rifles," the KSO spokesperson told NDTV today.
READ | "Without Unity, Can't Deal With Illegal Immigration": Manipur Chief Minister
Sources told NDTV being a refugee does not mean a person cannot be a member of a foreign insurgent group. The Manipur government has been for a long time raising the issue of unchecked illegal immigrants entering the state.
The Chief Minister told the Manipur assembly on August 6 that illegal immigration was a grave threat to the state's indigenous people and asserted that those who entered after 1961 should be deported with the central government's help.
In response to a query from Naga People's Front MLA Leishiyo Keishing in the assembly, Mr Singh had described the situation as "alarming," and stressed the need for unity in addressing illegal immigration. "It is an alarming situation. Illegal immigration has caused demographic changes, but some sections do not believe it. Without unity, it is not possible to deal with the issue," Mr Singh had said.
In June, several Naga civil bodies and organisations in Manipur had asked Union Home Minister Amit Shah to repatriate illegal Myanmar immigrants to their country. The Naga organisations submitted a memorandum to the Home Minister requesting him to deport illegal Myanmar immigrants.
The memorandum pointed out that some 5,457 illegal immigrants from Myanmar were being sheltered in eight Tangkhul villages in Manipur's Kamjong district adjoining Myanmar and they have outnumbered the local residents.
Yesterday, top sources had told NDTV no KNA(B) member was arrested in Manipur's Chandel, as claimed by some media reports.
There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the Meitei-dominated valley. The clashes between the Meitei community and the nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis - a term given by the British in colonial times - who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.
The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar's Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.