With SFs in self-protection mode KIM gives war cry
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: July 08, 2023 -

WEEKS after demanding that the govern-ment declare Coordination Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) as a terrorist organisation after the latter resolved in a public convention to launch war against narco-terrorism involving Chin-Kuki illegal immigrants, the Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM) has branded the Meetei people as warring enemy of the Kukis thereby leaving nothing to doubt that the unrest situation would be hard to contain, if not impossible.

Contrary to the COCOMI's declaration singling out those indulging in acts of narco-terrorism and calling for inten-sifying the people's movement against drug dealers and illegal immigrants to protect the territorial and emotional integrity of Manipur, KIM is projecting the whole Meetei population as its foes.

Notably, KIM, like any other Kuki organisations has been making it a point to vehemently condemn whenever Kuki villages come under attack but its statements, issued so far since outbreak of the ethnic violence on May 3, find no mention about the injuries and casualties inflicted upon the Meetei commu-nity, religious structures destroyed by armed Kuki groups, looting of Meetei houses in the peripheral areas or the provocative firing, which is on-going.

Thus, it's not surprising that the apex Kuki organisation has taken a tough stand against the Meeteis and has gone to the extent of giving a clarion call to the Kuki community to be battle-ready.

Rather than introspecting whether it is the Meetei or the Kuki people who are firing the first shots and censuring the real perpetrators, the KIM seems to have firmly resolved to fan the cauldron and compound suffering of the civilians.

Such a tough stand comes amid slew of alle-gations by Kuki students and civil organisations against the Meetei community whenever the latter resorts to aggression.

Apart from calling the Meetei people as warring enemy of the Kukis, KIM also cautioned that no Kuki indi-vidual shall re-establish any alliance or bonds whatsoever under any circumstances with the Meetei community and asked Kuki civilians and village chiefs who fled to safer places to return to their bases.

In a decree issued to the Kuki public, it emphasised that the Kukis shall under all circumstances resist and fight tooth and nail against any attack and every Kuki must take part in the fight in their endowed capacities.

It also said that every man must be prepared, put on the armour and get hold of the weaponry for the defence of Kuki ancestral land and nation, and that Kukis shall collectively strive together until separate administration is realised so as to have self-government and administration under the Constitution of India.

On the other-hand, it is commendable for the KIM to remember that Kuki chiefs and Meetei kings had throughout the ages lived together with mutual respect and understanding, thereby implying that successive Meetei kings were accommodative to indigenous as well as non-native people settling in the erstwhile kingdom.

As KIM's message is loud and clear, yet again, onus is on the central forces deployed in the state to ensure that they don't rest assured with the armed miscreants not targeting them but to execute their bounden duty of safeguarding the people, regardless of which community they belong to.