Restive Indian state lifts internet blackout after ethnic clashes

NEW DELHI: Internet was restored in India’s conflict-torn northeastern state of Manipur on Monday, weeks after a blackout was ordered to contain deadly ethnic violence and clashes between protesters and police.

Ethnic clashes broke out in Manipur last year between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki community, killing more than 250 people.

Since then, communities have splintered into rival groups across swaths of the northeastern state, which borders war-torn Myanmar.

Fresh clashes that killed at least 17 people last month in a part of Manipur previously spared from the violence prompted the latest of several internet shutdowns imposed in the state.

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That order came after protesters, outraged by the killings, tried to storm the homes of politicians in state capital Imphal, vandalising some of the properties.

The local government Monday ordered the lifting of “all forms of temporary suspension of internet and data services” imposed on November 19.

Internet services were shut down for months in Manipur last year during the initial outbreak of violence, which displaced around 60,000 people from their homes according to government figures.

Thousands of the state’s residents are still unable to return home owing to ongoing tensions.

Long-standing tensions between the Meitei and Kuki communities revolve around competition for land and public jobs.

Rights activists have accused local leaders of exacerbating ethnic divisions for political gain.

Manipur is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and Human Rights Watch has accused the government of facilitating the conflict with “divisive policies that promote Hindu majoritarianism”.