STDCM to resume stir
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, October 18 2021: Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee, Manipur (STDCM) has announced that it will resume its sit-in protest which had been deferred due to Covid-19 pandemic since April 19, 2021, as the government has remained silent over sending recommendation to the Union government for inclusion of Meitei/Meetei community in the ST list of Indian Constitution.

In a release, STDCM publicity secretary W.Ananda Meetei stated that the Committee with the support of the public has been campaigning for granting recognition to the indigenous Meitei/Meetei as an ST community so as to get constitutional safeguard to protect their identity.

Inclusion in the ST list is a right for all the indigenous communities as per the Constitution of India.

If Meitei/Meetei community is recognised as ST then the segregation of ST and non-ST among the indigenes of the state will be no more and all will live as one, it emphasised.

STDCM also stressed that the survival of Meitei/Meetei community in the future depends on being listed as ST.

As Meitei/Meetei has no constitutional safeguard, they have no way to protect themselves from extinction or get marginalised in their own land in future, which will only hurt the future generation.

As such, the state government's inaction in sending recommendation to the centre with requisite documents for inclusion of Meitei/Meetei in the ST list is proof of its negligence of Meitei/Meetei community, it decried.

STDCM further warned that if the government continues to remain silent it will organise more intense agitation.

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