Manipur Kuki-Zo apex body urges Governor to further extend t
Manipur Kuki-Zo apex body urges Governor to further extend time to surrender looted arms
Kuki-Zo Council (KZC), the apex body of Kuki-Zo tribals in Manipur, on Friday urged Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla to further extend the time limit to return the looted and illegally held arms and ammunition.
IMPHAL — The
Kuki-Zo Council (KZC), the apex body of Kuki-Zo tribals in Manipur, on Friday
urged Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla to further extend the time limit to return the
looted and illegally held arms and ammunition.
The top leaders of KZC and its associated organisations held
a crucial meeting in Churachandpur on Thursday and on Friday, announcing their
decision, said that the council would make a public call to surrender and
submit the looted arms.
"This undertaking would be carried out in all the
Kuki-Zo tribal inhabited districts. Since the call cannot be implemented in a
short matter of time, the Council would like to request the Manipur Governor to
extend the due date for the submission of arms for another couple of weeks so
that proper facilitation of the same can be initiated,” the KZC said in a
statement.
Responding to the Governor's appeal, 196 looted and
illegally held arms, including many sophisticated weapons, were returned to the
police on Thursday, the last date of surrendering the arms, in eight districts
of Manipur -- Churachandpur, Bishnupur, Thoubal, Imphal East, Imphal West,
Kakching, Jiribam, and Pherzawl.
Till Thursday (March 6), a total of 967 looted and illegally
held weapons, including many sophisticated arms, and a huge cache of
ammunition, were returned to security forces since Governor Bhalla made the
appeal for the first time on February 20.
"Effective recovery of the looted arms in the Valley
can only be engendered with the uniform application of law,” the council said.
The KZC reaffirmed the Kuki-Zo tribals' political demand for
a separate administration, in the form of a Union Territory with a legislature,
under the Constitution (Article 239A) and "to pursue this demand
relentlessly and unceasingly until our demand for SA is granted", the
statement said.
It said that on the matter regarding free highway movement,
the Council welcomed the Ministry of Home Affairs move to enforce the free
movement of essential commodities within the state.
"However, until and unless there can be a pact for
cessation of hostilities between the warring communities, the KZC cannot
guarantee free movement of people across buffer zones and cannot take
responsibility for any untoward incidents," said the statement, signed by
KZC's Information Secretary, Khaikhohauh Gangte.
Gangte said that until a political solution is reached
through dialogue, the KZC found it premature for government employees belonging
to the Kuki-Zo community to be posted in places where their physical and psychological
security cannot be guaranteed. He said that the Council felt the need to
question the extension of AFSPA (Armed Forces (Special Power) Act) in the ten
hill districts and the exclusion of 19 police station limits in six districts,
mostly in the valley region, inhabited by the Meitei people.
The KZC also expressed its disappointment at the
"failure to honour the assurance made by the government officials to visit
Churachandpur to meet the council leadership within 10-14 days" and on
whose assurance its proposed rally on February 18 was called off.
