Thadou body seeks recognition of ‘Third Category’ Internally Displaced in Manipur

June 19, 2025

World

Imphal, June 19: The apex body of the Thadou tribe in Manipur has urged the Justice Gita Mittal Committee, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla to formally recognise a third category of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who remain outside government relief systems more than two years after ethnic violence erupted in the state.

In separate memorandums, the Thadou Inpi Manipur (TIM) said that scores of Thadou families displaced during the May 2023 Meitei-Kuki clashes remain unregistered, unreached, and unaided by both central and state agencies. These families, now scattered outside Manipur and beyond the reach of official relief camps, fall through the cracks of current IDP classifications, TIM said.

The organisation has called for the immediate issuance of displacement certificates, a formal identification and verification exercise, and inclusion of these families in all relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement programmes.

“These Thadou families were displaced not out of privilege, but out of fear and necessity,” said TIM joint general secretary Manggou Thadou. “Their survival should be recognised, not punished. It is time the government formally acknowledges them as Internally Displaced Persons under a distinct and just category.”

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In its submission to the Justice Gita Mittal Committee on Relief, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, TIM highlighted the plight of Thadou community members who were forced to flee life-threatening violence, often losing all movable and immovable property, with only a few retaining fragments of land.

The body further emphasised that the Thadou are a distinct tribe, with their own language, culture, and traditions, and should not be conflated with the broader ‘Kuki’ classification.

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