The motion, signed by 21 other MPs, also urged the government to raise the issue of human rights violations in Manipur with the Indian government
Indian-origin British MP Nadia Whittome has tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons calling the UK to halt its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks with India in the wake of the ethnic violence in Manipur.
The motion, signed by 21 other MPs, also urged the government to raise the issue of human rights violations in Manipur with the Indian government. “While the Tories are negotiating a free trade agreement with India, minorities face persecution under BJP rule. I tabled a motion highlighting the campaign of violence against the Kuki-Zo people in Manipur,” Whittome wrote on X recently. “FTA talks must be halted while this continues,” the Labour MP for Nottingham East added.
Whittome’s Punjabi Sikh father emigrated to the UK from Banga, Punjab at the age of 21. Her mother is an Anglo-Indian Catholic solicitor and former member of the Labour Party.
The motion tabled earlier this month notes “the ongoing, grave human rights violations in Manipur, India, including acts of sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, home destruction, forced displacement, torture and ill-treatment, predominantly targeting the Kuki-Zo people, a tribal community who are largely Christian”.
Highlighting that UN experts had raised serious concerns about the slow and inadequate response by India, the motion stated that it “recognises that these human rights violations occur as part of wider attacks on religious and ethnic minorities across India, many of which public officials have been accused of aiding and abetting”.
Whittome’s Punjabi Sikh father emigrated to the UK from Banga, Punjab at the age of 21. Her mother is an Anglo-Indian Catholic solicitor and former member of the Labour Party.
At least 175 people have been killed, 1, 108 injured and 32 remain unaccounted for since the ethnic violence erupted in Manipur on May 3.
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