Manipur tribal body condemns inclusion of CM Biren Singh in peace committee

 The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), backed by the Kuki community in Manipur, on Sunday condemned the inclusion of Chief Minister N Biren Singh in the 51-member peace committee constituted by the Centre, calling Singh "the perpetrator of the current violence" in the state.

In a public statement, the ITLF said that the state machinery under the Chief Ministership of N Biren Singh was directly responsible for the engineering and escalation of the violence in Manipur. 

"His (N Biren Singh) constant rhetoric and hate speech against the Kuki-Zo community, the wholesale tagging of Kuki-Zo community as drug peddlers, terrorists, and illegal immigrants directly shadow the open declaration of genocide by the Meitei Leepun's chief Pramot Singh on National Media and the declaration of proxy war of "Chin-Kuki Narco-terrorism" by fringe Meitei groups," it said.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum said that a peace committee should only be formed after conditions of normalcy and security for the Kuki-tribal villages had been secured."No such normalcy can be maintained as long as the state police and Meitei militant groups are given free rein to terrorize Kuki-Zo tribal villages in the foothills," it said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs on Saturday announced that the Centre had constituted a peace committee in violence-stricken Manipur, chaired by Governor Anusuiya Uikey. The members of the committee include the chief minister, state ministers, MPs, MLAs and leaders of different political parties. Various civil society groups, including those belonging to the Naga community have also been represented on the panel. 

While the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an apex body of valley-based civil society organizations backed by the majority Meitei community, was included in the peace committee, the Kuki community-backed ITLF has not been included.