Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday (September 17, 2024) said the Union government is in talks with the ethnic groups at the centre of a running conflict in Manipur.
“We have taken a number of steps in Manipur, we are holding discussions with the Kuki and Meitei groups. To stop infiltration, we have suspended the Free Movement Regime along the Myanmar border and decided to fence the border,” Mr. Shah said during a press conference.
Manipur is affected by ethnic violence, it is different than terrorism, the Home Minister said.
Manipur has been restive since February 2023 when the BJP-led government launched an eviction drive seen as targeting a specific tribal group. The drive led to protests but not on the scale of the one on May 3 triggered by the Manipur High Court’s direction to the State to pursue a 10-year-old recommendation to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the non-tribal Meitei community.
Census will be conducted soon
The census will be conducted across the country soon, Mr. Shah said, and added that the details regarding the caste census would be made public after the census is announced.
The decennial census was supposed to be held in 2021, but it has been postponed indefinitely since then. The last census conducted in India was in 2011.
Mr. Shah also said no country can develop without their regional languages. “Rajbhasha (Hindi) is not in competition with any other languages in the country,” he said.
On the issue of railway accidents in the country, Mr. Shah said if they are being done as part of a conspiracy, it will be dealt with accordingly. “The NIA, CBI, and the railway police are preparing a blueprint to deal with it,” he said.
On being asked about the QR codes being shared by Muslim groups to oppose the Waqf Amendment Bill, Mr. Shah said the Parliamentary Committee has received complaints, and it is working on it.
Published – September 17, 2024 11:21 am IST
