Our army is marching the streets of Manipur, and paramilitary forces are being deployed in multiple cities in Manipur, as images and videos of violence, arson, and blatant human rights abuse surface online from a state under curfew. And all this escalation started when a centenary gate was burned down by some miscreants during a peaceful rally in Churachandpur.
The absolute media blackout is only making the waters murkier, as assumptions and rumors put the socials platforms ablaze, much like the streets of Manipur as the decades-old uneasy ties between the displaced Kuki and local Meitei tribes break down in a fiery pit of hell.
Manipur has been caught in a cycle of insurgency, ethnic strife, and intra-state dissonance for quite a while now.
The latest riots being another page out of the hill-valley divide, the unrest this time might be stemming from a legislative bill that the Hill folk of the state were expecting the Manipur Assembly to the table and pass.
It is in this backdrop that the All Tribal Students’ Union Manipur (ATSUM) imposed an indefinite “economic blockade” along the national highways in the hill districts after “rejecting” the aforesaid bill that was introduced in the Assembly. The Meiteis of the Valley retaliated by blockading the Hill districts. The state administration feared a spiral clamped down by severing internet and mobile network connection across Manipur and putting 10 out of 16 districts under curfew.
Prominent voices like the celebrated boxer Mary Kom have tweeted that her state is on fire. There are unconfirmed reports of ethnocentric violence as alarming videos of Tribal students being hunted & rounded up on the Manipur University campus grounds.
There are multiple claims online that many tribal churches in Imphal have been burned or ransacked, leading to one death.
The absolute media blackout, internet clamp down, and horrific imagery coming out of that state; are creating a very smoky image of what is going on in Manipur. It’s hard to trust unverified news sources, and that is giving way to a lot of fake news, manipulated media and communally inspired propaganda online. So be careful what you see, because maybe, you are unwillingly being a participant in someone else’s ill will.
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