Students rally for ST status to Meetei
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, May 21 2024: As part of the movement spearheaded by World Meetei Council (WMC), students of Grace Peace Academy, Hiyanglam Lai Pangalba, and Bal Vidya Bhavan, Wabagai organised a protest rally demanding the state government to submit the requisite ethnography report and the latest socio-economic report in order to pave ways for Meetei to gain ST status.

Informing this in a statement, WMC said that people of Manipur have been urging the state government to send the requisite recommendation to the ministry for granting ST status to Meetei community.

However, the government has always been stalling the matter, which the students decried during the Tuesday's rally.

Unless the state government takes up immediate measures to ensure grant of ST status to Meetei, the community will, one day, become refugees in their own motherland, WMC cautioned.

Even when there are only 10 Kuki MLAs, the state government can do nothing against the separate administration demand.

They are posing a major threat to the integrity and identity of the state.

In such a situation, Meetei becoming minority is akin to disintegration of Manipur, the WMC statement said.

The government should take up necessary measures for ensuring ST status to Meetei community before the upcoming delimitation exercise unless they want Meetei to meet the same fate encountered by the native Tripuris in Tripura, the statement added.

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