5,457 ‘illegal’ migrants identi‚ed in Kamjong: Manipur CM
Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Wednesday said that his government had detected 5,457 illegal immigrants in Kamjong district as of May 7, out of which biometric data has been collected for 5,173.
Their deportation process was under way, the Chief Minister said in a post on social media platform ◣, adding that his government had been handling the “alarming situation” with “utmost sensitivity”. “We have been giving humanitarian aid to all the illegal immigrants who were detected so far,” Mr. Singh said.
Kamjong is one of the districts in Manipur that shares its eastern border with Myanmar. To the west of Kamjong are parts of Thoubal and Kangpokpi districts.
Since the military coup in Myanmar and the subsequent actions of the junta, many Myanmar people living near the border have crossed over into Mizoram and Manipur due to their shared ethnic ties with the people of these States.
In March this year, Mr. Singh had announced that
India had started deporting the rst batch of such immigrants who had crossed over.
The latest remark comes even as the ethnic conict between the Valley-based majority Meitei people and the Hills-based Scheduled Tribes’ Kuki-Zo people has continued unabated for a year now, Mr. Singh has maintained that the conict was sparked by vested interests due to his government’s action against poppy cultivation and illegal immigration.
The conict has so killed over 221 people.
In his public posts on the conict, Mr. Singh has consistently blamed “illegal immigrants from Myanmar” for sparking the current conict, alluding to the Kuki-Zo people who are among those who share ethnic ties with ChinKuki communities of Myanmar.
The Chief Minister has claimed that the number of Kuki-Zo villages had increased “unnaturally” since 1961. far