PM Modi must personally intervene to restore peace in violence-hit Manipur: Sharad Pawar

The Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) said peace continues to elude strife-torn Manipur despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assurance in Parliament, and demanded his immediate intervention. 

The Shiv Sena (UBT) also sought to know what the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre was doing to improve the situation in Manipur. 

"PM Modi assured the country that peace will be restored in the state of Manipur soon, but it eludes the state and violence continues there," Clyde Crasto, national spokesperson of the NCP said in a statement.

 "Yesterday, the private residence of Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh was attacked. If this can happen to a person in government, one can understand what the common people of Manipur are suffering for months," he said. 

This inability to stop violence in the state is the failure of both the state and the central government, which is headed by BJP, he said. 

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"Therefore, our PM Narendra Modi ji must now personally intervene in this sensitive matter by calling the warring communities of Manipur, understand their reason for unrest and find a way to bring truce between them and eventually restore peace in Manipur," Crasto added. 

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said the situation in Manipur is very bad and the government, the Union Home Ministry and the Defence Ministry have failed to restore peace. "Students have been killed...What is the government doing?" he asked. "They made the new Parliament building, but no discussion on Manipur was allowed," Raut added. 

This is a deliberate attempt to foment unrest before 2024, he alleged. Manipur descended into chaos and untrammelled violence in May this year over a high court order directing the state government to consider including the non-tribal Meitei community in the list of Scheduled Tribes. 

This order led to rampant ethnic clashes. More than 170 people have been killed and several hundred others injured since ethnic violence first broke out in the state on May 3 when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for ST status. 

A fresh bout of violence broke out in the state capital on Tuesday, a day after photos of the bodies of two youths - a man and a girl - who went missing in July went viral on social media. 

A mob tried to attack the CM's empty ancestral house on Thursday night, despite heavy security clampdown and curfew in Imphal valley. Security forces, however, foiled the attempt after firing several rounds of tear gas shells.