KIM refutes claim of 900 Kuki militants’ infiltration in Manipur

Guwahati: Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM), an apex body representing the Kuki tribes, Sunday dismissed claims by the Manipur govt that 900 Kuki militants had infiltrated the state from Myanmar. Manipur security adviser Kuldiep Singh had told reporters that these militants were planning coordinated attacks on Meitei villages around September 28.
KIM countered the accusation, saying, in reality, it was Meitei militants who were entering the Manipur valley with the state govt’s support.
Separately, the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) questioned how 900 Kuki militants could infiltrate the state when 60,000 central security personnel and an additional 35,000 state forces were deployed in Manipur.
The group demanded the state govt to locate them and seize any weapon they might have brought.
“Outside terrorists entering India is a national and state security threat. These 900 Kuki militants must be found, along with the weapons they carried,” said Kiran Moirangcha, spokesperson of COCOMI.
Such fictitious claims, purportedly under duress simply to retain the post of security advisor, only stresses the urgency for a political solution for the Kuki-Zo people to prevent further misuse of the democratic institutions and the gross violation of human rights by the Manipur state govt, the apex body said.
KIM further accused “Valley-Based Insurgent Groups (VBIGs)” of coordinating attacks against the Kuki-Zo people with support from the “Meitei State Police”, the Arambai Tenggol, and other radicalised Meitei factions.
In response to KIM’s allegations, a spokesperson of the Meitei Heritage Society said, “The exposure of anti-India foreign forces, with alleged ties to Kuki militants in killing Meitei civilians using drone bombings, has clearly rattled them. It is a fact proven by publicly available official records that most of the Kuki militant group leaders have a direct or indirect link with Myanmar, namely Zomi Revolution Army president Thianglianpao Guite, who was a member of Parliament in Myanmar.”