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Hundreds of students and community leaders from the Kuki Students' Organisation-Delhi and NCR took to Jantar Mantar on Saturday, urging the central government to ensure justice and a separate administrative framework for the Kuki-Zo community in Manipur. The rally comes amid more than two years of recurring ethnic violence and displacement in the northeastern state.

 

Under the banner “Forged Government is Forged Justice; Separate Administration is True Justice”, demonstrators sought constitutional protection and immediate humanitarian relief for the community, which has faced targeted killings, village burnings, and forced displacement since May 2023.

 

Submitting a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the organisation's president Paajahup Guite described the “profound grief and unyielding sense of injustice” endured by the Kuki-Zo people. “For more than two years, the Kuki-Zo people have lived through an unending nightmare marked by targeted killings, burning of villages, desecration of churches and forced displacement,” the statement read.

 

Official figures suggest over 220 lives have been lost and more than 60,000 people remain displaced across relief camps in Manipur and neighbouring states. The organisation warned that ongoing inaction threatens to “fracture faith beyond repair.”

 

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The memorandum called for five core measures: justice and accountability for the violence, creation of a separate administration with legislative powers, safeguards against forced assimilation, humanitarian relief and rehabilitation, and a buffer zone between Kuki-Zo and Meitei-inhabited areas to prevent renewed conflict.

 

“Despite clear evidence and numerous appeals for accountability, justice has remained elusive,” the organisation said. “We do not seek privilege, we seek justice. Let the Kuki-Zo people not remain exiles in their ancestral land.”

 

The ethnic tension between Kuki-Zo tribes and Meitei communities in Manipur has escalated since May 2023, resulting in communal clashes, mass migration to relief camps, and heightened demands for administrative reforms.

 

The Delhi rally highlighted the urgency for constitutional intervention, with students, human rights defenders, and community leaders collectively urging the central government to address grievances before the situation deteriorates further.