Investigate the action of Mahar Regiment
- 21st May, 2025 :: The Meitei Alliance -

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Open Letter to His Excellency, The Governor of Manipur

Subject: Urgent Request to Investigate the action of the Mahar Regiment who forced to remove ‘Manipur’ from an MSRTC bus

Your Excellency,

We write to you with deep concern and distress on behalf of many Manipuri who continue to hope for peace, dignity, and unity in the state. However, the socking incident where the Mahar Regiment’s forceful removal of the word “Manipur” from a Manipur State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus within its own state has shaken that fragile hope yet again. This action is a blatant assault on the identity, dignity, and constitutional status of Manipur and its people.

It raises serious and troubling questions:

1. Under whose orders were the paramilitary forces operating?

2. Why was a legitimate state vehicle barred from traveling within its own territory merely for bearing the state’s name?

3. Why are central forces, meant to be impartial and to ensure peace, instead seen to be bending to the threats of elements seeking to divide the state?

The implications of this act, though looks symbolic, are grave. In a state already scarred by violence, displacement, and an erosion of trust in central security forces, such actions only deepen the chasm. They embolden divisive forces and send a dangerous message of exclusion - that the very name of Manipur is unwelcome within its own constitutional boundaries.

Your Excellency, this incident warrants your immediate attention. We respectfully urge you to order a high-level and time-bound investigation to establish:

1. A time-bound and transparent investigation into the incident, particularly the chain of command and responsibility behind this ‘brazen’ insult to a state and its people.

2. Accountability and disciplinary action against all personnel involved.

3. Firm institutional guarantees that no such act will be repeated in the future.

Furthermore, this incident underscores the urgent need to review and recalibrate the role and conduct of central forces deployed in the state, particularly in areas where public trust has already eroded. Manipur is a state of proud people with a shared heritage.

Efforts to fracture its identity - whether through violence or through subtle legitimisation of separatist pressures - must be met with unequivocal resistance from all arms of the state. Allowing such behavior to go unchecked sets a precedent that will only serve to undermine the rule of law and the spirit of federalism.

We look to your office as a custodian of the Constitution and a guardian of the state's unity. I trust that you will treat this matter with the urgency and seriousness it deserves.

With hope and in anticipation of your prompt action,

Media Coordinator
Meitei Alliance

Founded in November 2023, is an alliance of Meitei diaspora associations in India (Association of Manipuri
Diaspora– Pune; Chennai Manipuri Forum; Delhi Meetei Co-ordinating Committee, Hyderabad Manipuri Society; Manipuri
Diaspora Association- Chandigarh; Manipuri Diaspora, Assam; Manipuri in Kolkata; Meitei Association – Mumbai; Meitei
Association in Sikkim; Meitei Heritage Society, Delhi; Manipuri Meitei Association Bengaluru; Mumbai Manipuri
Solidarity Group; Society for Meitei’s Chamber of Commerce, Assam; Takhel Leima Tengbang Lup; Tripura Meitei
Association), in Australia (Meitei Community in Australia) and UK, Europe, Canada, USA, and Nicaragua.