SHDDC memo to Manipur 'king' on Sadar Hills

IMPHAL: The agitating Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee (SHDDC) on Saturday submitted a memorandum to Leishemba Sanajaoba, the titular king of Manipur, seeking his intervention into their demand to create Sadar Hills district.

"We would be immensely happy should you prevail upon your own people for tolerance and justice be done upon the people of Sadar Hills," read the memo, signed jointly by SHDDC president Ngamkhohao Haokip and general secretary Tonghen Kipgen.

In pursuit of its demand, the SHDDC has been imposing economic blockade on the Imphal-Silchar and Imphal-Dimapur routes since August 1. A group of Kuki elders, including women and eminent personalities, submitted a memorandum to Leishemba at his palace in the heart of Imphal. People of Manipur were facing steep increase in prices and a scarcity of food and essential commodities because of the economic blockades.

People residing in the valley in interior hill districts such as Ukhrul, Chandel, Tamenglong and Churachandpur were suffering the maximum inconvenience.

Over 400 Manipur-bound trucks and oil tankers were stranded in Assam and other places due to the economic blockade.

Both the Centre and the state government have failed to honour their own decision taken at the highest level for development of Sadar Hills district for the past 40 years, the memo said.

It added, "The people of Manipur have seemed to fail to remember the history of the last centuries that we had shared and sailed together for the purpose of unity in diversity. We felt that India and Manipur have not yet given justice to the people of Sadar Hills. Moreover, we seemed to have lost justice in the hands of Indian democracy that has adversely posed a threat to our traditional relations."