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Department of Anthropology, Manipur University, Canchipur, Imphal 795003, Manipur, IndiaReceived 12 October 2012; accepted 5 November 2012Dear Madam,I read with concern the article by Shah et al. [1] entitled‘Gene Frequency of Sickle Cell Trait among Muslim Popula-tions in a Malarial belt of India, i.e., Manipur’ published inyour esteemed journal. However, I found many ambiguitiesin it.I would like to make the following comments on this articleand would like to draw the attention of the authors and theeditors to certain issues, listed below.The authors of the paper lack information of the popula-tion structure of Manipur state. They mislead the Naga group,as the term Naga is a generic term and under this group morethan ten major ethnic groups such as the Tangkhul Naga, MaoNaga, Maram Naga, Kabui Naga, etc. are included. So, it isnot clear which Naga ethnic group they selected for theirstudy. The Meiteis, on the other hand, are the numericallydominant ethnic group of Manipur state, India. Manipurwas earlier an independent princely state ruled by the Meiteisbut formally annexed to the Indian Union on the 15th October1949. The Meites are, therefore, not a ‘tribe’ and one shouldnot loosely use the term ‘tribe’ as it implies social prejudice.The Muslims of Manipur, locally known as pangal, stand forthe second largest community of the state. The word ‘pangal’is said to be a corrupt form of ‘Bengal’ [2]. The Muslims ofManipur, who were originally a Bengali speaking population,are said to have migrated from Sylhet (now in Bangladesh) andCachar district of Assam in the year 1606 [3,4]. They settled inManipur by adopting the Manipuri language and marrying thelocal women.Haemoglobin E is the most popular haemoglobin variant inSoutheast Asia [5] as well as in Northeast India. The onlyvariant haemoglobin occurring in considerable frequencies inNortheast India is Haemoglobin E (HbE), and it is the onlyabnormalhaemoglobinsofardetectedamongtheautochthonesof this area [6]. Research on abnormal haemoglobin types inManipur is not a new venture. Reports on prevalence ofabnormalhaemoglobintypes,particularlyHbE,amongvariouspopulations of Manipur are now available. From Manipur,Singhetal.[7]reportedtheprevalenceofhaemoglobinEamongthe Meiteis (0.101) and Brahmins (0.028). The greatest fre-quency of allele HbbE, 0.226, among the Phayeng (a scheduledcastesectionoftheMeitei)ofManipurisreportedbySinghandSingh[8].In2009,SinghandSingh[9]reportedtheincidenceofhaemoglobinEgeneamongsixpopulationsofManipurandtheincidence ofHbEamong them ranges from0.030 ofthe Gangtetribe to 0.084 of the Meitei through the Thadou Kuki (0.035),Kabui Naga (0.037), Ningthoukhong Meitei (0.045) and theMuslims (0.059). In another study, Singh et al. [10] reportedhaemoglobin E distribution in four endogamous populationsof Manipur. Their study reveals the prevalence of HbE(0.101) as well as beta thalassaemia (0.004) in the Meiteipopulation. The prevalence of HbE in the remaining threepopulations namely, the Kabui, the Koireng and the Simte is0.035, 0.029 and 0.012, respectively. Shah et al. [1] reported ahigh incidence of sickle cell haemoglobin among the Meitei(0.1531), the Naga (0.08) and different sections of ManipuriMuslims namely, Sheikh (0.1602), Syed (0.1252), Pathan

Letter to the editor: Controversial report on sickle cell trait in Manipur, India