There has been no incident at proposed Kuki-Zomi burial site since status quo order, DGP tells Manipur HC

Manipur DGP Rajiv Singh requests HC to close contempt case for failing to implement order to maintain status quo at proposed burial site for 35 Kuki-Zomi people killed in ethnic conflict. DGP claims vandalism occurred before court order, security forces had made sufficient arrangements. ITLF yet to decide alternate site, bodies of deceased remain at morgue.

The Director General of Police (DGP) of Manipur has requested the Manipur High Court to close the contempt case, where it was accused of failing to implement an earlier order to maintain status quo at a proposed burial site for 35 Kuki-Zomi people killed in the four-month-long ethnic conflict in the State. 

A month ago, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and Joint Philanthropic Organizations (JPO) decided to mark three months of the continuing ethnic conflict by burying 35 of the Kuki-Zomi people killed till then. The proposed site was at S. Booljang in Haolai Khopi village located at the edge of Churachandpur and Bishnupur districts. 

However, this site also houses a State government sericulture farm. 

A day before the proposed burial on August 3, the International Meiteis Forum (IMF), a civil society organisation, approached the High Court and secured an order directing all security authorities to maintain status quo at the land in question, citing that it was government land. 

In the contempt petition, the IMF alleged that the security forces had failed to implement the High Court’s order, and accused the Kuki-Zomi people of vandalising government property at the site.

Responding to this, Manipur DGP Rajiv Singh submitted that there had been vandalism at the sericulture farm where Kuki-Zomi people intended to bury their dead, but this incident had taken place on July 25, much before the court’s August 3 order. He added that a First Information Report (FIR) over the incident had already been registered at the Churachandpur Police Station.

The DGP said that after the announcement of the burial, the police had credible inputs of possible escalation of conflict if the burial was allowed to happen. Accordingly, after the High Court’s order, sufficient security arrangements had been made and there had been no incident of vandalism or demolition of any structure at the site since then, the State police chief said in the counter-affidavit dated August 29.