IMPHAL, 3 Sep: A prominent Kuki organisation has requested the Assam Rifles (AR) not to deploy its unit under the command of a Meitei officer in Sehlon in Manipur’s Chandel district “in the interest of peace and security.”
In a letter to the AR director general, the Kuki Chiefs’ Association (KCA) of Khengjoi subdivision in Chandel district said that the law and order situation in Manipur is still unstable and it can aggravate with a little misadventure and miscalculation on the part of the security establishments.
“We have no intention to interfere in the routine movement of Assam Rifles battalions, but leaving the charge of a unit to a Meitei officer at this time and place will not serve the interest of the public of the area,” it said.
“We want to maintain cordial relations with the Assam Rifles as usual. We wish our goodwill gesture
is reciprocated accordingly,” the letter, signed by the association president, T Sheithang Haokip, added.
Last of 10 Kuki families in Imphal shifted to Kangpokpi
Meanwhile, the Manipur government has shifted the last of 10 Kuki families, comprising 24 members, from Imphal’s New Lambulane area, where they had been living for decades and did not move elsewhere even after the ethnic violence broke out in Manipur four months ago.
These families were taken to the Kuki-majority Kangpokpi district on the northern side of Imphal valley early on Saturday, as they had become “vulnerable targets,” an official said.
The last of 10 Kuki families were provided “safe passage” to Motbung, in Kangpokpi district, some 25 kms from Imphal, he said.
But Kuki families alleged that they were forcibly evicted from their residences in New Lambulane area to Motbung.
S Prim Vaiphei, one of the volunteers guarding the Kuki locality in the heart of Imphal, said that a “team of uniformed armed personnel claiming to be acting under directions from the home department came to New Lambulane, Imphal in the intervening night of 1 and 2 September and forcibly evicted the last remaining residents of the Kuki locality in Imphal from their homes.”
Around 300 tribal families who were living in New Lambulane area had earlier left the place in phases since the ethnic violence began on 3 May.
“Twenty-four of us were not given time to even pack our belongings and we were herded into vehicles with only the clothes we were wearing,” Vaiphei said in a statement.
Expressing strong displeasure over the “forcible eviction,” Kuki Inpi Manipur, the apex body of the Kuki tribes, in two statements, said its stands “aghast at the dastardly attack against the last of the Kuki-Zo volunteers (numbering about 24 men) who have been guarding the houses and properties of the Kukis in New Lambulane. The volunteers were later escorted by security personnel.”
The Kuki body reiterated its demand for a separate administration.
“There is now total separation of the Meiteis and Kukis. It is imperative that the central government should constitutionally recognise this separation at the earliest,” it said. (PTI)
