COCOMI points finger at SoO outfits
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, May 11 2023:
While communal clashes have seemingly ended and people are longing for peace, only the Kuki militants are left waging war against civilians and security - forces, said Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) urging the Government to declare the outfits as terrorists.
It said there is enough evidence showing that the Kuki militants were involved in the conflict and they had instigated the people against each oilier.
In a statement its media coordinator Somorendro Thokchom said Kuki militants armed with sophisticated weapons including AK-47, AK-56 and even sniper rifles are constantly attacking civilians and security forces in valley villages near the hills.
"Peace can never be restored until the Kuki militants under SoO stop attacking civilians in the interior areas near the hills,' it said, alleging that the "Kuki militants" have openly attacked civilians and security personnel in the State against the rules of the SoO.
Yesterday, an AR personnel was injured in a gunfight against suspected Kuki militants at Phukao Dolaithabi area.
Today morning, a personnel of the Manipur Rifles was killed at Tera Khongsangbi area while fighting suspected Kuki militants who were trying to attack the locals of the area.
Even though there is concrete evidence, the State has not yet taken any aetjop against the militants.
COCOMI suspects that India's internal policy .is.
supporting them indirectly against the interest of.
the people of Manipur.
"It is now clear that the violent clashes that started on May 3 were communal in nature but the handiwork of the Kuki militants and some people instigated them to attack Meitei villages in a bid to oust them from near their areas and grab land," COCOMI said.
It further asserted and explained that the conflict was solely instigated and fuelled by Kuki militants. Even though sections of the people had participated in the riot and violent clashes due to their anger and disappointment; now after normalcy has returned slowly, they are keen on bridging the ties with their brethren from the other community.
As people have calmed down they do not see each other as enemies. While the people have reached out to each other to restore peace by communicating with each other, only the Kuki militants are left waging war against civilians and security forces.
This shows that they were the only force that had caused the violent clashes and their interests do not align with the interests of the people, COCOMI said. COCOMI also tore into the statements given by MLA Paolienlang to a National media and said the MLA presented a biased and one sided story and played blame game instead of trying to end the conflict.
While he mentioned Kuki houses torched in the violent clashes, he did not mention about incidents of Meitei houses near his Constituency reduced to ashes.
Further, ATSUM's statement released yesterday was not good for fostering peace as it may have caused more anger to those who were not even part of the conflict, said COCOMI. The statement was ill timed and not aimed at resolving the issue, it said.
While stating that ATSUM's rally was the cause and vio-lent incidents started to break out during it, COCOMI said instead of pointing fingers at this juncture, ATSUM should pay more attention to containing the situation and providing relief to displaced and stranded people.
As ATSUM is a student body consisting of both the Naga students and Kuki students, it should act responsibly and also, the Naga leaders should hold the body accountable for any thing it says and does in the name of the union (ATSUM) said COCOMI.
Reiterating that the Kuki militants had fuelled the violent incidents, COCOMI stressed again that while the communal violence have ended, only Kuki militants are continuing to wage war against the civilians and security personnel.
As enough evidence is there, the Government should scrap the Suspension of Operations (SoO) and declare the Ktiki'^ militants as terrorists, it said.
Comment
