Centre will include Kuki Statehood Demand Committee in talks

NEW DELHI, 31 Jan 2013 [Imphal Free Press] --- The Centre would definitely include the Kuki Statehood Demand Committee or KSDC in the forthcoming talks with Kuki groups to resolve the grievances which are leading to blockades and many disturbances in Manipur. This was disclosed to Vision Communications in an exclusive interview by Sh Shambhu Singh, Joint Secretary (NE) of Ministry of Home Affairs. "The KSDC might be feeling ignored. They might be feeling that we would just talk to KNO and UPF on the Kuki side and NSCN(IM) on the Nagaland side. Had they come to me when I last visited Manipur I would have told them, that their feelings are unfounded. We will definitely include the KSDC in the talks", Shambhu Singh said. However the talks would not be presided over by any Ministry official but by an interlocutor. Singh disclosed that the cabinet has to clear the idea of deputing an interlocutor for talking with the Kukis. "Once that is over, talks" shall start immediately" he said before decidedly going on record to say that "talks will start within one month's time". The chosen interlocutor will talk separately to all the three Kuki organisations to try to come to some common ground, the Joint Secretary assured before urging that blockades should not be resorted to. "These agitators are unnecessarily inconveniencing the people of their own state. For us every citizen of the country is important. If the Kukis are important, the common people are also important, so we cannot ignore one at the cost of the other", he said.