Highway compensation row report misleading: Kangpokpi village chiefs
Source: Chronicle News Service

Kangpokpi, July 26 2025: Chiefs and chairmen of villages affected by the expansion of National Highway-2 (NH-2) in Kangpokpi district have strongly refuted media reports alleging irregularities in highway compensation, calling them misleading, factually inaccurate, and damaging to the truth.

The news report, initially carried by NDTV and recently re-published by local dailies, alleged widespread irregularities in the disbursal of highway compensation funds and even claimed that villagers were coerced into signing blank documents by members of an armed group.

In a joint press clarification, the chiefs and chairmen of villages affected by NH-2 road expansion in Kangpokpi district expressed deep disappointment over what they termed the "irresponsible conflation" of their legitimate grievances with unverified and unrelated allegations.

They clarified that their names and petitions cited in the report referred only to formal complaints submitted to the then Deputy Commissioner of Kangpokpi district regarding anomalies in land acquisition, and not to any of the broader allegations made in the news report.

The joint clarification, signed by chiefs and chairmen of 12 villages, stated that their sole grievance concerns the wrongful declaration of privately-owned ancestral land as government property by land acquisition authorities, which led to the denial of rightful compensation for land and solatium.

They claimed that the land affected by the highway expansion had been inhabited by their forefathers long before India's Independence, and they were only demanding what is legally and morally owed to them.

The 12 chiefs and Chairmen further stated that they accepted the compensation awarded for standing structures without objection but were forced to accept the award under protest due to the complete denial of compensation for land and solatium.

They also categorically denied the media claim that villagers had been intimidated into signing blank documents by Jangboi Kipgen, the finance secretary of the Kuki National Front (KNF), calling the accusation entirely baseless and defamatory.

No such incident ever occurred, they said, adding that linking their rightful protest with such fabricated allegations was not only misleading but a gross misrepresentation of facts.

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