Burning of Chassad was another attempts to rewrite history to suit IM's self-aggrandizement goal: KIM
Source: The Sangai Express

Kangpokpi, March 20 2020: Reacting to the alleged misleading statement of NSCN-IM over the recent Chassad incident, the Kuki Inpi Manipur, the apex body of the Kukis, claimed that the IM's statement went against the historical rights and reality of the Kukis and the burning of Chassad was nothing but an attempt to rewrite history to suit their self-aggrandizement goal.

KIM Vice president (Political Affairs), Sominthang Doungel said, "We had expected a statement in the tone, temper and language as was issued by "the Ministry of Information and Publicity of the NSCN-IM", on March 18, in the wake of the Chassad conflagration on March 16".Asserting that the "facts" as boldly stated in their NSCN-IM"s press statement was like all the preceding press statements they had issued upon the Kukis over the years and it went against the historical rights and reality of the Kukis, he added that machiavellian claims and manoeuvres of the NSCN-IM, only exposes their devilish ploy and a sinister attempt to doctor history to suit their selfish interests.

The Kukis very well know that the NSCN IM would resort to burning of Kuki houses in the hope that the legal deeds of land ownership issued by British colonial rulers will be burned away and make contradicting and misleading press statement, he alleged.

Chassad, in Kamjong district (formerly Ukhrul district) of Manipur was the village of the chief Pache, one of the twenty-three prominent Kuki chiefs from Aisan in present-day Phek district of Nagaland to far-flung Somla (Somra in Tangkhul dialect) in present-day Myanmar (Burma), he said claiming that the Tangkhul ethnic group were residing in separate locations within the territory of the Kukis and paid tax and tributes to the Kuki chiefs.

The people of Bongpa Tangkhul Village also came from the banks of the river Nathalit (Tizu) in the Somra Tract in Burma for fear of extermination by the Kacha Nagas.

The Chassad Kuki chief settled them in Ukhrul.

In gratitude, the Bongpa Tangkhul paid tax and tributes to the Chassad chief, he said and maintained that the Tangkhuls still seek to drive the Kukis away with the sole intention to usurp their land by force and in a most primitive and abominable manner.

He also pointed out that Phungyar Constituency from which Rishang Keishing was elected member of Manipur Legislative Assembly was originally, called Phaisat, a Kuki Village while adding that the Tangkhul seized this village from the Kukis and named it Phungyar.

It was only during the Kuki Political Movement (KPM) when Chassad had been broken up and dispersed by the Government that Sambui village established itself on the present site.

Being Tangkhuls and hence neutral during the movement (KPM) they were allowed to settle before Chassad was allowed back but this did not give them the right to the land, he added.

Continuing that in M case no 1387 of 1919- 1920, Mr Peter stated that Pache's land will not be confiscated from him but will probably be vacant till he returned, KIM's Vice president lamented that Pache was the chief of Kamjong and was in jail at the time for being a leading rebel during the Kuki Political Movement.

Before this Rithale Khullakpa of Sambui and his followers had been living as ordinary villagers under Chassad chief and on land, he said further adding that in M case no139 of 1927-28 Mr Peter ordered that in future if Khoikai villagers cut jhum in Chassad land without first taking permission he would put the person doing so in jail.

He then said that these two cases above leave no room for doubt that the land has always been recognised as belonging to Chassad.

Saying that the Chassad village chief has every right to publish a statement in any local or National papers that the stretch of land spanning from Khoikai village to Chassad village has been under the custodianship of Chassad village since time immemorial and the NSCN IM and Tangkhul public should not poke their nose into the matter, he opined that NSCN IM should stop their tactics of seizing land belonging to Kukis using intimidation, coercion, subjugation and systematic elimination of Kuki chiefs.

Sominthang Doungel also maintained that the order of RH Shaw, the Sub Divisional Officer, East stated that, 'I cannot recognise Sambui's claim to the land which had previously been recognised as Chassad land'.

There are also documentary evidence of land ownership and we can now find out who faithfully paid the tax, claimed the Vice president (Political Affairs) of KIM.

He also recalled that in the 1950s and 1960s, many Kuki villages in Ukhrul district have been forced to leave their ancestral home by the Tangkhul Nagas.

Many of them fled to nearby Kabaw Valley of Burma as refugees there.

These same people being an Indian citizen repatriated into India in the infamous Khadawmi Operation of 1967 by the military junta government of Burma.

It was due to either uninformed bureaucrats in Manipur administration at the least or a sinister design at the top, that these hapless Indians were label as "refugee", he added.

To use such careless bureaucratic jargons like 'refugee' is only a means to fulfil the sinister design of NSCN-IM to evict Kukis from their ancestral land.

Otherwise, it holds no water in the real world, he added.

He also asserted that refugees nor immigrants without 'a single village' would not have launched a major offensive against an imperial power lasting from 1917 to 1919 .

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