Imphal/New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS): Leaders of the Kuki-Zo Council (KZC), the apex socio-political body of the Kuki-Zo tribal communities in Manipur, held a meeting with senior officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in New Delhi on Friday and discussed their demands and prevailing situation in the northeastern state, KZC sources said.
The four-member delegation of the KZC, led by its Chairman Henlianthang Thanglet, met the Adviser to MHA A. K. Mishra and Joint Director, MHA, Rajesh Kamble.
Though the KZC leaders said that they would disclose the details of the discussion at Friday's meeting on Saturday, sources in the council said that they told the MHA officials about the precarious situation in the tribal inhabited areas.
The KZC also apprised the MHA officials about the biased role of a section of the security personnel and how the tribal are being deprived by the state administration.
The other members of the KZC delegation were Council’s Spokesperson Ginza Vualzong, Coordinator Ajang Khongsai, and Finance Secretary Richard Hmar.
The KZC, a conglomerate of 13 organisations of the Kuki-Zo tribal community, and 10 tribal MLAs have been demanding a separate administration equivalent to a Union Territory for the Kuki-Zo-Hmar tribal-dominated areas.
Friday's meeting with the MHA officials assumes significance in view of the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur and the government’s moves to resolve the ethnic crisis in the northeastern state.
The KZC last week urged Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla to take steps to deploy "neutral central security forces" to deal with the ethnic crisis and also pressed their demand for a Union Territory.
The tribal leaders met the Governor in Churachandpur district headquarters during Bhalla’s maiden visit and submitted a memorandum, which also demanded "maintaining the sanctity of the buffer zones between the hill and valley regions and re-demarcation of district police jurisdictions".
The memorandum said that there has been no improvement in the security situation following over a year-and-a-half of killings and displacements and citizens "continue to face daily danger of death".
"One-and-a-half years after the violence began, Kuki-Zo community people's homes and properties are still being set on fire and destroyed. To date, almost 7,000 homes have been demolished, over 220 Kuki-Zo community people have lost their lives, over 360 places of worship were destroyed, and about 40,000 have been made homeless,” the memorandum had said.
The Governor, on his maiden visit after assuming office on January 3, visited Churachandpur and Bishnupur districts on January 7 and during his interaction with various civil society organisations (CSOs) appealed to the leaders to work collaboratively with the administration in peace-building efforts.
Bhalla also visited various relief camps in the two districts and interacted with displaced people, who have been staying in the relief camps since the ethnic violence broke out in Manipur in May 2023. At least 250 people have been killed and over a thousand people injured in the ethnic violence between the tribal Kuki-Zo and the non-tribal Meitei people since May 3, 2023. More than 60,000 people have been displaced from their homes and villages and now staying in relief camps in different districts for the past 20 months.