Thadou Students' Association demands removal of DGP
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 18 2026: The Thadou Students' Association (TSA) has called for removal of the incumbent Director General of Police who, according to them, is unfit and overhaul of the 'failed' Manipur Police.

While strongly condemning the barbaric terrorist ambush on innocent Thadou Baptist Church leaders at Kotlen - Kotzim inter-village road, Kangpokpi district May 13, 2026 which killed Rev Dr Vumthang Sitlhou and two other senior pastors, while injuring five other church leaders and workers, the TSA has asserted that this cold-blooded attack has exposed the criminal neglect, communal bias, and dangerous appeasement of terrorists by the Manipur Government under Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand.

The DGP, as head of the police force and Chairman of the Operational Intelligence Group (OIG) in the Unified Headquarters, has proven totally unfit to strategize or lead.

As a result, Manipur police has become unsuccessful in maintaining law and order and exists only for legal formalities, according to a statement issued by the TSA .

Counter-insurgency personnel are used only for facilitating transportation of dead bodies and injured persons instead of hunting terrorists.

There is practically no one left to conduct genuine counter-insurgency operations.

The TSA said that policing has collapsed totally under the present DGP .

It decried that the Manipur Government, led by CM Yumnam Khemchand, has failed to take any substantive action or make any decision and announcement even five days after the cold-blooded killings of Thadou Church leaders, unlike in previous heinous attacks and killings.

The ambush was a clear and self-evident act of terrorism, yet the Chief Minister visited the victims only to condemn the incident without acknowledging the victims as Thadou Church leaders, it remarked.

According to the TSA, the State administration and police allegedly pressured doctors at Shija Hospital to issue discharge letters and shift the injured Thadou victims to Kangpokpi Civil Hospital just one day after major surgery on May 15, 2026, and ordered the Assam Rifles to escort them to Kangpokpi in a Casspir vehicle.

This inhuman and cruel decision reveals the Government's malicious intent to deny Thadou people proper treatment in Imphal and professed Thadou are not safe in Imphal, it said.

Thadou Baptist Association Church at National Games Village, Langol, Imphal, was neither targeted nor harmed during the peak of the crisis, and is currently occupied by Tangkhul Baptist Church.

It indicates that Thadou people were not harmed by the Meitei or Naga communities, but rather by Kuki groups.

However, the State Government is actively enforcing medical apartheid against Thadou citizens, denying them free movement in Imphal, and thereby allowing growing mistrust between Thadou and the other "35" Manipuri communities of Manipur, it said.

The TSA said that it is the Kuki supremacist militant groups who are posing the greatest existential threat to the Thadou community.

The TSA also placed a list of non-negotiable demands before the Government which are;

Our Non-Negotiable Demands are: -
Immediate transfer of the case to National Investigation Agency (NIA) for impartial and time-bound investigation.
Round-the-clock security protection to all surviving Thadou Church leaders and victims.
Strict action against Kuki organizations indulging in intimidation and false propaganda.

Removal of the unfit DGP and overhaul of the failed Manipur Police.
Public acknowledgment by CM Yumnam Khemchand of the targeted killing of Thadou Church leaders.
End to discriminatory treatment and medical apartheid against Thadou in Imphal.

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