On Tuesday, the Kuki-Zo highest council, Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) condemned the event of burning down of houses in K Songlung village, Kangpokpi district, strongly and demanded that sufficient security personnel be deployed in the area immediately.
The council claimed in a statement that the cadres of the banned Zeliangrong United Front (ZUF), Kamson faction, set a number of houses, farm structures and a vehicle ablaze on Monday. The KZC termed the event as another darkening moment of violence that has escalated the insecurity of the Kuki-Zo people, as well as eroding the values of constitutionalism of the Republic.
The ZUF (Kamson) group purportedly took credit of the arson, saying that it was a part of its fight against the illegal poppy planting, drug trafficking and illegal encroachment by illegal immigrants. The Kuki-Zo Council however categorically denied such allegations claiming that although such anxieties might have existed, they could have been legitimately handled by lawful authorities and not by violence.
The council emphasized that the matters concerning the poppy cultivation or the illegal immigration would be under the jurisdiction of the police and the district administration. It cautioned the ZUF group to immediately discontinue the incidences of such allegations as an excuse to attack Kuki-Zo villages or invade Kuki-Zo territory.
The KZC ordered the security forces to be deployed immediately in order to protect lives and property, compensate the families that had been hit by the arson and to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. Restating its old age political demand, the council opined that the only solution that can be sustainable and that would provide peace, security and justice to the Kuki-Zo people in Manipur is to have a Separate Administration, in the form of a Union Territory with legislature.
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