Manipur BJP spokesperson and Thadou tribe leader T Michael Lamjathang Haokip has filed a police case after two dozen people, some of them armed, burned a portion of his house and fired shots in the air in Churachandpur on Sunday night.
In the first information report (FIR), Mr Haokip named 15 people as “directly or indirectly” responsible for the attack on his property and family. He also named two people who allegedly asked members of a WhatsApp group to kill him. One of the two promised to give “village land” to anyone who kills the state BJP spokesperson.
“… Suspect the involvement of the fake Thadou Tribe Council (TTC-GHQ) leaders and operatives, who have made violent rhetoric and provocative statements,” Mr Michael said in the FIR.
He attached printouts of the WhatsApp group’s screenshots which showed the discussions to kill him. The police and the cyber cell will check the phone numbers with their service providers, and if needed will take help from central anti-terror cybersecurity experts, Mr Haokip told NDTV. He declined to give further details.
In the purported screenshot of the WhatsApp group chat attached to the FIR, one of the members had written, “SA (separate administration) will not be acceptable without killing LJT (Lamjathang) first, even if the central government is willing to grant us.” Another member wrote, “I promise to give my village land if anyone kills Lamjathang.”
NDTV has seen a copy of the FIR, which shows some phone numbers in the WhatsApp group.
Mr Haokip said the attacks and threats came as a result of him raising awareness about his tribe, Thadou, being inaccurately referred to as a Kuki tribe amid the ethnic tension in Manipur. He said it was the second time his house in Churachandpur was attacked, allegedly by those who do not accept the Thadou tribe’s distinct identity.
The police case was filed a day after a new video threatening to kill the BJP spokesperson and Thadou leader was shared widely on social media. The video shows a man in black tactical wear surrounded by three in camouflage battle dress carrying AK series assault rifles. All of them wore masks.
“Lamjathang, if you speak against the community one more time or disgrace the community, we will kill you whether you are in Guwahati or Delhi… Meiteis didn’t differentiate between Thadou, Kuki or Zomi,” the man in the middle said.
The four men cannot be village defence volunteers who usually carry licenced single-barrelled and small-calibre handguns, a retired police officer in Churachandpur said, requesting anonymity.
“They can only be insurgents, and this threat can’t be taken lightly, as they are openly claiming they can kill a civilian anywhere in the country. This would not be the first time someone from Manipur is facing a threat to life even while living outside the state,” the retired officer said.
NDTV couldn’t independently verify the video, though some members of the Thadou tribe said the video and the dialect heard in it are genuine, based on what their own sources told them in Churachandpur.
The TTC-GHQ which Mr Haokip alleged is a “fake” organisation has six advisers, and 10 executive members, according to the last published information of the group’s structure. The TTC did not take the consent of four of them before making them members of the “council”. The four have given in writing that they were not aware of their membership of the TTC. They requested anonymity for fear of attacks.
“My father’s consent was not there. Clarification already given,” the son of one of the four people said.
Calls to the TTC’s publicly available numbers went unanswered.
The TTC has been condemning Mr Haokip’s comments on the Thadou tribe not being part of Kuki. The TTC has said in a statement that it is the mainstream Thadou body and affiliated to the Kuki Inpi Manipur. “… Appropriate action shall be initiated if they continued to misuse Thadou again in future,” the TTC had said in a statement on July 21.
In its recent statement on August 20, the TTC criticised a new Thadou body called Thadou Community International (TCI) as not genuine and formed by some people “to collaborate with Chief Minister N Biren Singh”.
Mr Haokip is one of the key members of the TCI, a group that claims to be a global Thadou tribe platform to look into critical issues facing the community, particularly in Manipur.
No one was injured in the attack at Mr Haokip’s house on Sunday night. Four families displaced by the violence in Manipur also live in four small structures at his family plot, Mr Haokip had said.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh and other leaders had strongly condemned the attack. “…I consider this personal harm being put on one of our recognised tribes as a direct challenge to the unity and integrity of the state. Attacks on any particular community of the recognised tribes of Manipur, as well as the attack on the family of the BJP spokesperson, are condemned in the strongest terms. We will initiate appropriate legal action against the culprits,” Mr Singh had said in a post on X.
The attack carried out on the family members of Micheal Lamjathang a leader of the Thadou community, one of the oldest among the ethnic tribes of Manipur, as well as a BJP spokesperson by vandalizing his house was an act of cowardice.
I consider this personal harm being put on…— N. Biren Singh (@NBirenSingh) August 27, 2024
The clashes between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the nearly two dozen tribes under the Kukis nomenclature – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.
The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.
