Imphal:

A top human rights activist in Manipur has raised concern over threats by the Imphal-based group Meitei Leepun (ML) after he gave legal aid to a Norwegian national, who, he said, was misidentified as a “Christian Chin” by the ML.

Human Rights Alert (HRA) executive director Babloo Loitongbam in a statement on Tuesday said some 50 men came to his house in the state capital Imphal on Monday and threatened his family.

“This [threat] is following a press conference by Meitei Leepun (ML) the previous day levelling false charges on me as well as warning people against working with me,” Mr Loitongbam said in the statement.

The ML has alleged the longtime human rights defender has taken money from the Kuki tribes to work against the interest of Meiteis. At Monday’s press conference, the ML members also alleged Mr Loitongbam has been helping a “PDF Women Wing Commander” identified as Mya Kyay Mon, who the ML claimed was a Myanmar national of Chin ethnicity.

The PDF, or People’s Defence Force, is the armed wing of Myanmar’s National Unity Government that is fighting the junta.

Mr Loitongbam has refuted all these allegations. Citing his three-decade work as a human rights defender, the father of three daughters said he stood up for the right of every person to seek asylum in another country when they are facing persecution in their own country.

“This includes asylum seekers in India from Myanmar through the medium of appropriate institutions like a functioning Regional Foreigners Registration Office or by giving access to the UN High Commissioner for Refugee to offer its humanitarian services in Manipur,” Mr Loitongbam said in the statement.

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He said Mya Kyay Mon was referred to HRA as a woman prisoner in distress, and as an empanelled lawyer under the Manipur Legal Services Authority, the HRA offered legal aid, secured her bail and referred her to a woman’s home in Imphal pending her trial.

“She is a citizen of Norway, and is of Burma-Buddhist origin. She is not a Chin nor a Christian as widely circulated online. The only charge levelled against was that of overstaying her visa. There is no other charge against her. To the best of our knowledge, she is still detained in Imphal jail,” Mr Loitongbam said in the statement.

“The allegation that I have accompanied her to the UN and the US to raise funds is factually incorrect as she is still placed under judicial custody by the state authority,” he added.

Mr Loitongbam called a “figment of imagination” another allegation by the ML that he was in touch with the civil society group Manipur Meitei Association Bangalore to be part of a “Naga-Kuki-Meitei meeting” to frame the Meitei community for genocide.

The association, too, in a statement denied any such meeting was planned, and asked people to guard against “misleading information being shared by vested interests seeking to divide the Meitei community and tarnish our reputation”.

Caught In Crossfire

The ethnic tension between the valley-dominant Meiteis and the Kuki tribes, who are dominant in some hill districts in southern Manipur and a few other areas, have sharply divided the two communities to such an extent that both sides have publicly attacked and harassed any member of their community who held views not popular with their respective communities.

Mr Loitongbam is duty-bound to help anyone from any community as part of the Manipur Legal Services Authority empanelment. The case of Mya Kyay Mon being referred to HRA was, however, seen by the ML as working against Meiteis since the ML had already decided that Mya Kyay Mon was a Myanmar national of Chin ethnicity and the Kuki tribes share ethnic ties with the Chin people.

Mr Loitongbam’s house was vandalised in October 2023 after he discussed the ML and the Meitei village defence group Arambai Tenggol in a media interview. He later withdrew the comments following threats.

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Members of the Kuki tribes have also attacked a prominent Thadou tribe leader for his views that the Kukis saw as unhelpful in their narrative against the Meiteis. Thadou tribe leader T Michael Lamjathang Haokip’s house was vandalised twice and set on fire in Kuki-dominated Churachandpur district in August last week.

Mr Haokip has said he has been raising awareness about his tribe, Thadou, being inaccurately referred to as a Kuki tribe amid the ethnic tension in Manipur. This had angered “Kuki supremacists” as they do not want to accept the Thadou tribe’s distinct identity, Mr Haokip has said.

Three Kuki-Zo MLAs from among the 10 who have been demanding a separate administration carved out of Manipur had clarified they want their own tribes to be called by their correct names, instead of being associated only with the term “Kuki-Zo”.

On social media, the three MLAs received threats of boycott and other “consequences” for allegedly weakening the Kuki tribes’ resolve to persuade the Centre to create a separate administration. One of the BJP MLAs had told NDTV everyone should feel free to state facts about the tribe they belong to. “I fail to understand why threats are coming my way for simply saying to which tribe I and the people I represent belong,” the leader had told NDTV, requesting anonymity.

Right after the attack at Mr Haokip’s house on August 31, a video appeared on social media of a man showing a gun and a bullet and threatening to kill Mr Haokip. Another video shows a man in black tactical wear surrounded by three in camouflage battle dress carrying AK series assault rifles – all of them masked – saying they will kill Mr Haokip wherever he is, whether “Delhi or Guwahati”.

New Delhi/Imphal:

A woman who was released on bail after her arrest in Manipur in August last year over her expired Norwegian passport and Indian e-visa is allegedly a top member of a Myanmar-based insurgent group, people with direct knowledge of the matter told NDTV.

The insurgent group is fighting the junta in Myanmar’s Chin State, just across the border from Mizoram and Manipur, sources said.

Mya Kyay Mon, 52, was found walking “suspiciously” at a market in Manipur’s capital Imphal on October 23, sources said, adding how she continued to stay on with expired documents and what she was doing in violence-hit Manipur are under investigation.

With Imphal on high alert amid the ethnic tensions between the Meiteis and the Kuki tribes following months-long violence, the police questioned Ms Mon after they found her at the market. She showed her travel papers that turned out to be expired, sources said.

She was taken to the foreigners detention centre and is kept there since then, following an order by the Manipur government to the state police chief and the jail superintendent. NDTV has seen a verified copy of the Home Commissioner T Ranjit Singh’s letter to the police chief and the jail superintendent.

“It is claimed she came to Imphal to appear in a legal case concerning expired documents. But we are exploring all angles, including the allegation that she’s a top member of a Myanmar-based insurgent group and has links with some armed elements in the hill district Churachandpur,” a senior police officer who has direct knowledge of the matter told NDTV, requesting anonymity.

Some 25 hill-based Kuki insurgent groups have signed the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement with the centre and the state government. These insurgent groups along with some civil society organisations in valley-majority Imphal have come under intense scrutiny over alleged participation in the ethnic violence that has killed over 180 and left thousands internally displaced.

Ms Mon was first detained by the Assam Rifles during routine checking in August last year on the highway connecting Imphal with the border trading town Moreh. The Assam Rifles in a statement had said they found an expired Norwegian passport and an Indian e-visa, and she came to India in May 2019.

Subsequently, the Manipur Police took her into custody and kept her in Imphal’s central jail, until she got bail in February this year, after which an Imphal-based human rights organisation run by local activist Babloo Loitongbam helped her find a women’s shelter home to stay.

“The case of Ms Mya Kyay Mon, a Norwegian citizen of Myanmar origin, was brought to the attention of HRA (Human Rights Alert) by the Myanmar language instructor of the Centre for Myanmar Studies of Manipur University… HRA took up her case as a ‘woman in distress case’ and informed the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Delhi. Thereafter, she was issued a fresh Norwegian passport as her old one had expired,” HRA executive director Mr Loitongbam said in a statement in response to local media reports on the matter.

“… In the wake of the ethnic unrest in Manipur and when the NGO (shelter home) expressed their discomfort in keeping her, we organised an air ticket for her to get out of the state. We have been informed she was summoned by the court to appear in her pending trial in Manipur,” Mr Loitongbam said in the statement, adding they did not know Ms Mon before and after her arrest in August last year, until the moment they met her in the Imphal jail.

The activist, who is also a fierce critic of Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh and whose house was vandalised by a mob earlier this month over his comments on two Meitei organisations, said HRA only gave “legal and humanitarian services” when requested by a woman in distress “as per our mandate as an organisation defending the human rights for all.”

A statement purportedly given by Ms Mon to the media said she left Manipur in May when ethnic violence broke out and lived in Delhi for two months. She then went to Punjab for four weeks and returned to Delhi. She went to Rajasthan next, from where in October she came to Kolkata and proceeded on to Dimapur. Finally, she came to Imphal to meet members of the Manipur Human Rights Commission on October 11, the statement said. But she couldn’t meet them and left Imphal, only to return on October 23, the day she went to the market in Imphal from where she was detained by the police. NDTV could not independently verify this statement.

Though the Manipur ethnic violence between the Kuki tribes and the Meiteis is said to be over the Meities’ demand for inclusion under the Scheduled Tribes category, many leaders including Union Minister Home Minister Amit Shah and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar have said entry of illegal immigrants is one of the main factors behind the unrest in the northeast state, which is ruled by the BJP.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said it is looking into an alleged transnational conspiracy involving terror groups hiding in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Manipur to exploit the ethnic violence in the northeast state.