Fear Grips Non-Manipuris

Migrant workers at the Imphal relief camp.

Imphal, Aug 27 : Manoj Shaha, a 26-year-old hawker from Bihar, has been sitting in one corner of a medium-size room at Dharmasala since his arrival at the lodge here this morning.

He has been in the city for the last 14 years, ever since his father came here in search of a job. The killings of the migrants that resumed a few days back, however, has made Manoj change his mind.

“I do not want to stay here any longer. Who will feed my wife and our two children back home in Motihari district of Bihar if I too get killed? We came here to make a living. I will go home once I am allowed to go out of this camp,” he said.

Manoj is one of nine migrant labourers — five from Bihar and four from Cachar district of Assam — taking shelter at the relief camp opened by the Okram Ibobi Singh government from today at Dharmasala, a lodge run by the city’s business community.

The migrant labourers were rounded up by police teams from their workplaces around the city this morning and given shelter in the camp which is guarded by armed security personnel.

The killing of Mohon Shaha, a migrant labourer, by two unidentified gunmen at the city’s Wahengbam Leikai area on Tuesday night prompted the Manipur government to order the police to pick up migrants loitering about or working in the city’s isolated pockets.

Mohon was returning to his rented house at Wahengbam Leikai when he was attacked. He is the fifth migrant to be killed by unidentified gunmen since January 6 this year and no one has been arrested in connection with his killing yet. So far 34 migrant labourers have been killed by unidentified gunmen in Manipur since February 29 last year.

Though no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on migrants, additional superintendent of police, Imphal West, A.K. Jhaljit, blamed militant groups.

The fresh attack came after the Revolutionary Peoples Front, the political wing of the Peoples Liberation Army served a quit notice to all non-Manipuris (migrants) coming to the state after 1949 — the year Manipur was merged with India — to leave by May 31 this year.

“It is good that the state government brought us here and we feel safe, but how long can we stay like this? We have to work and earn money to feed our families. We will go home after taking our wages from the contractor,” Abul Laskar, a contract labourer from Lakhimpur of Cachar district of Assam, said.