Kuki-Zo insurgent groups have iterated their demand for a separate Union Territory to be carved out of Manipur with its own legislature and a “revision of the ground rules” of the suspension of operations (SoO) pact, sources said.
The insurgent groups and the Centre are holding talks after a gap of two years, during which Manipur has been riven by an ethnic conflict. The Union home ministry on Monday held the first round of formal talks in Delhi with the militant groups. Five members from Kuki-Zo groups, the home ministry’s Northeast adviser, A.K. Mishra, and Intelligence Bureau officials were present at the meeting.
“The two sides discussed the way forward for a political solution in the state. The Kuki-Zo representatives spoke about their longstanding demand for a Union Territory with a legislature and a revision of the ground rules of the SoO pact,” said a home ministry official.
Issues relating to the reopening of highways to ensure free movement of people across the state and surrender of weapons that were looted during the ethnic clashes were also discussed in detail at the meeting, the official said.
The home ministry is yet to release an official statement on the outcome of the meeting. The sources said the first round of talks was “positive” and the next leg would take place next week to chalk out a strategy to restore long-term peace in the strife-torn state.
Manipur, which has been witnessing periodic ethnic clashes since May 2023 between the majority Meitei and tribal Kuki communities, accounted for 77 per cent of the total violence in the entire Northeast in 2023, according to the latest annual report of the home ministry.
Of the 243 violent incidents reported in the Northeast in 2023, 187 were from Manipur, the report said.
In March last year, the Manipur Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution urging the Centre to terminate the SoO pact with all Kuki-Zo militant groups. The tripartite pact among the Centre, state and the Kuki-Zo insurgent groups, signed in 2008 and renewed annually, has been put in abeyance since then.
The SoO groups wield greater influence in the hill areas, inhabited by the Kuki-Zos.
The SoO was kept in abeyance by the Centre following allegations that the militant groups involved in the pact were fanning the ethnic conflict, a charge the groups had denied.
Kuki-Zo outfits and their legislators have requested the Centre to renew the pact.
Under the agreement, the insurgent groups had agreed to shun any form of violence, including attacks on security forces. The Centre and the state, too, agreed not to deploy the army, paramilitary or state police against the signatories as long as they abided by the terms of the pact.
Meitei organisations have demanded that the camps of the Kuki-Zo insurgent groups be shifted from near the valley districts, where the Meitei population is concentrated.
The ongoing violence in the state has claimed at least 260 lives and displaced over 60,000. It has caused the Kuki-Zos to leave the Meitei-majority valley and the Meiteis to stay away from the tribal-dominated hill districts.