The chiefs of at least ten villages of Khamenlok area in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district have come together to issue a press statement in light of the recent attacks leading to the destruction of their villages by thousands of heavily armed Meitei militants including the banned UNLF cadres and militias aided by armed personnels drawn from Manipur Police Commandos and IRB.
The villages include H. Khopibung, Khamenlok, Chullouphai, Aigejang, A. Leikot, A. Phainom, Thombol, Jordanphai, Songjang and Govajang.
“We would like to categorically describe the destruction of our villages as a calculated state sponsored design at displacing us from our homeland. Our valiant defense of our villages with every weapon at our disposal including local made piped guns, licensed SBBL guns have not been able to withstand the tide of thousands of armed Meitei militants aided by Manipur State Police Commandos & IRB, finally leading to the total destruction of 10 Kuki villages in our area,” read the statement.
Press Release from Chiefs of villages burnt down in Khamenlok about disinformation in the media pic.twitter.com/2nUebEYGDd
— Greeshma Kuthar (@jeegujja) June 16, 2023
They went on to say: “While we have escaped with our lives to seek refuge in neighboring Kuki villages, we can say with pride that our defiant defense of our villages has led to several casualties on our side and the death of scores of well-armed meiteis who have been terrorizing our areas since the morning of June 12th, 2023.”
“While we were busy defending our villages, the media houses based at Imphal valley controlled by the metes have painted us to be Kuki militants with spins as absurd as to say that we were the attackers of this terror campaign unleash upon us, for no fault of ours other than to belong to the minority Kuki Tribes. While the lies and fabrication of facts and circumstances of Meite print media houses were expected, the fact that the celebrated print media houses such as “The Hindu’, The Indian Express’, would spin the Meitei narrative of being the victims of Kukis attack is unfathomable,” the village chiefs said.
The statement further said: “The Hindu in its article ‘Manipur Violence/ atleast 11 killed in late night attack in Khamenlok painted us, the Khamenlok area ‘Village Defense Volunteers’ as Kuki militants armed with sophiscated weapons is far from truth. The fact is that the deaths reported in this article are that of those armed Meitei militants at Aigejang village on the night of 13th June. The armed Meite militants after having destroyed Khopibung on the evening of 12th June went on to carry their destruction campaign at Khamenlok & Chullouphai and subsequently at Aigejang village after having exhausted our defense volunteers of almost all ammunitions.”
The village chiefs narrated the incident: “On the night of 13th June, having learned that several armed Meiteis were seeking shelter at partly burnt Aigejang village to carry out further campaigns of destructions of the neighboring villages, the Village Defence Volunteers in a least-ditch attempt to thwart their design carried out a daring attack on the armed Meiteis taking shelter at Aigejang and inflicted several casualties mainly through our piped guns. Having exhausted all our ammunitions and gun powder to power our piped guns, the armed Meiteis with the help of reinforcements sent by the Manipur government burnt down all the remaining villages of our area on the 14th of June, 2023. The attacked and assault on the Kuki villages on the day of 14th June was directly supervised and commanded by the CM N.Biren Singh, Minister Th. Bishwajit Singh and Leisemba Sanajaoba MP (RS) who stationed at Nongsum Meitei village the whole day till the house burning campaigns were over.”
It added: “And having been at the receiving end of a state sponsored destruction of our community with the Indian Army failing to protect us, we agree upon the Government of India to allow the armed Kuki militants under suspension of Operations (SOo) to defend what remains of the kuki settlements henceforth or direct the Indian Army to take sufficient measures to protect us. This appeal to the Government of India is made so that Kuki settlements giving us refuge now may not meet the same fate as we did.”
The village chiefs also appeal to media houses ‘The Hindu’ and ‘The Indian Express’ to not paint the victims as aggressors and armed aggressors as Meitei villagers. “A modest check on the Meitei deaths within our villages should explain how you termed as ‘villagers’ are but armed meiteis who have come all the way from distant places to carry out their campaign of destruction of our settlements,” they said.
The village chiefs demanded: “FIR on the destruction of our villages and properties shall be lodged. The State Government that sponsored these acts of terrors by arming the Meiteis to carry out their ethnic cleansing campaign upon the minority peace loving Kukis should also be booked in accordance with the law of the country.”
“Having also faced the full destructive might of Manipur Government, common and armed Meiteis upon us, we fervently appeal to the Government of India to urgently take up the issue of Separate Administration of the Tribals living in present day Manipur, particularly the Kukis so that no community shall not ever carry out destructive ethnic cleansing campaign against us in the future,” the statement concluded.
