TIM seeks third category for displaced Thadous
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 18 2025: Thadou Inpi Manipur (TIM), the apex body of the Thadou tribe, on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Supreme Court-appointed Committee on Relief, Rehabilitation and Resettlement of Displaced Persons chair person Justice (Retd) Gita Mittal and Manipur chief secretary Prashant Kumar Singh seeking a third category for displaced Thadous living outside Manipur and relief camps without any government support.

The memorandum highlighted the urgent need to recognise a third category of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), specifically those displaced Thadou families who are living outside Manipur and outside government relief camps, and who remain unregistered and unreached by any form of state of central assistance since outbreak of the violence in Manipur on May 3, 2023.These families, though genuine victims of displacement, are excluded from the two official IDP categories currently recognised by the Manipur government: category 1: campers - those living in relief camps and registered with Deputy Commissioners and category 2: non-campers - those living outside camps but within Manipur and registered with deputy commissioners.

The third category, as defined in TIM's submission, included displaced persons who: fled amid life-threatening violence, suffering total loss of movable and immovable property, with only a few retaining plots of land, currently residing in cities such as Delhi, Guwahati, Shillong, Bengaluru, and others, facing immense hardship, psychological trauma, and lack of stability and have not been officially recognised or registered as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) by any government authority, have received no form of relief, compensation, or rehabilitation assistance from either the state or central government to date, the memorandum elaborated.

TIM has called for the immediate issuance of displacement certificates, a formal verification exercise, and inclusion in all relief and rehabilitation frameworks, while also urging authorities to acknowledge the resilience of these families who have survived two years without support.

These Thadou families were displaced not out of privilege, but out of fear and necessity.

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, it added.

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