india

Updated: Oct 15, 2019 08:17 IST

Two banned insurgent outfits in Tripura and Manipur have jointly called for a dawn to dusk shutdown on Tuesday claiming that both the two northeastern states had merged with India in 1949, “under duress”.

National Liberation Front of Twipra (NLFT) and Alliance for Socialist Unity, Kangleipak (ASUK) have said in a statement that the shutdown would be enforced from 5am to 5am.

However, religious activities and emergency services would be exempted from the shutdown.

NLFT’s self-styled president H Uastwng Borok and ASUK’s self-styled chairman Oken claimed in the joint statement that Kangleipak (Manipur) and Twipra (Tripura) were merged with India after the agreement in 1949 out of “pure miscalculation” and “unrealistic comprehension”.

They said the erstwhile king of Manipur became a mere figurehead after the installation of an elected legislature and Tripura’s queen Kanchanprabha Devi’s regency had “questionable legitimacy” after the unilateral dissolution of the council of regency.

“…. We have become demographically outnumbered or nearly outnumbered, political marginalised and disintegrated, economically dependent… National doom is staring at us viciously. Merger with India is the root cause of all these national maladies,” they said in the release.

NLFT was banned in 1997 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and then under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

The government says NLFT has been responsible for violent activities including 317 insurgency-related incidents in which 28 security forces and 62 civilians lost their lives during 2005-2015.

The outfit was floated by Dhananjoy Reang on March 12, 1989, with an agenda of a sovereign Tripura. ASUK is a group of several militant outfits operating in Manipur.