After video goes viral, former head of Manipur BJYM says he is facing death threats
The Hindu
Former BJP youth leader alleges threats from Meitei community, implicates ex-Chief Minister in Manipur conflict, amid political turmoil.
Within hours of a video going viral on Monday (February 17, 2025), where he is heard alleging that former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh had made attempts on his life, and implying that Mr. Singh had engineered the conflict in the State, M. Barish Sharma, former State president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), on Monday (February 17, 2025) said he had been receiving death threats from certain sections of the Meitei community.
Mr. Sharma said that he had been planning to approach the police for a First Information Report (FIR) on the issue, adding that his life continued to be under threat, and that he had no police protection despite having sought it several times.
Mr. Sharma was also among the accused arrested in a firing incident in Imphal West district in October 2023.
In the video, Mr. Sharma can be heard saying that he was among “the first Meitei village volunteers to be arrested by him [Mr. Singh]”. “Wherever he told us to go, we went and made war. Let me say, Biren is the one who tried to break up Manipur,” Mr. Sharma said, according to a translation of his remarks, which were made in the Meitei language.
“I have received death threats about what they will do to me, and where they will throw by body, from at least five people, after the video [went viral]. These are not Kuki people; they are Meitei,” he told The Hindu over a phone interview on Monday (February 17, 2025) evening.
In October 2024 too, Mr. Sharma had alleged that he was threatened and had faced extortion by people who identified themselves as members of the ‘PREPAK (People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak) Progressive’, according to an FIR registered by the Manipur Police at the Porompat Police Station.
PREPAK is one of Manipur’s proscribed valley-based insurgent groups.
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