US Offers To Help India To Deal With Manipur Violence, Congress Reacts Sharply

US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti has offered to assist India in dealing with the violence in Manipur.

Garcetti said one need not be an Indian to care when "children or individuals die in this sort of violence".

"You don't have to be an Indian to care when children or individuals die in this sort of violence. We know peace is a precedent for so many good things. There has been so much progress in the Northeast and the East...We stand ready to assist in any way if asked," Eric Garcetti said.

"We know it's an Indian matter and we pray for that peace and that it may come quickly. Because we can bring more collaboration, more projects, more investment if that peace is in place," he added.

The statement evoked a response from Congress MP Manish Tewari who said it is very rare for a US envoy to make a statement "of this nature about the internal affairs of India".

"To the best of my recollection going back at least 4 decades in Public life I have never heard a US Ambassador making a statement of this nature about the internal affairs of India," Tewari said.

"We faced Challenges in Punjab, J&K , North East over the decades and surmounted those with sagacity and wisdom. Even when Robin Raphel would be loquacious on J&K in the 1990's the US Ambassador's in India was circumspect. I doubt if the New Eric is cognisant of the convoluted and torturous history of US-India relations and our sensitivity about interference perceived or real, well-intentioned or mal intentioned into our internal affairs," he added.

Manipur is witnessing incidents of sporadic violence for the last two months after an ethnic violence broke out on May 3 between Meitei and othet communities in the state.

Nearly 120 people have lost their lives and over 3,000 were injured in the months-long violence.