India: Deadly violence continues in Manipur despite army intervention

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The tribal Christian Kuki-Zo community in India’s Manipur state continues to face deadly attacks from extremist members of the Hindu majority Meitei community, despite recent military interventions, the Christian Post (CP) reports.

To date, 131 Kuki-Zo Christians have been killed since the Manipur conflict erupted on May 3, CP reports. Moreover, 200 Christian villages and over 360 churches have been burned or destroyed.

Eight people, four from each community, have been killed very recently. In a statement to the Christian Post, Kuki-Zo Christian leaders said that members of the Meitei community got killed only because they entered tribal areas to initiate deadly assaults.

“The latest incidents occurred in the border areas between Bishnupur district, which is home to the Hindu majority Meitei community, and Churachandpur district where Kuki-Zo Christians live, ” CP said in its report. The violence has continued despite the government’s deployment of around 50,000 soldiers, armed police and other security personnel to enforce buffer zones between the two communities.

Describing the situation as “unprecedented,” Lt. General P.C. Nair, director general of the federal paramilitary force Assam Rifles, said in a statement he is concerned that both communities have now accumulated a “large” number of weapons. “Mobs surrounding forces, women blocking roads are new hurdles for the force trained to fight armed insurgents,” Nair said. “We are here only to curtail the levels of violence. … But more importantly, we are talking to multiple civil society organizations and various stakeholders to get them to hold talks.”

Ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014, India ranks 11th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

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