Kuki Students' Organisation holds rally demanding justice, separate administration for Kuki-Zo community

A large gathering at Jantar Mantar on October 25 saw members of the Kuki Students’ Organisation–Delhi and NCR (KSO-DNCR) call for justice and a separate administrative arrangement for the Kuki-Zo community in Manipur. The rally, conducted under the theme “Forged Government is Forged Justice; Separate Administration is True Justice,” highlighted what organisers described as over two years of continuing ethnic violence and displacement in the state.

Students, human rights advocates and community leaders joined the demonstration, urging constitutional and human rights protection for the affected Kuki-Zo population. In a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, KSO-DNCR president Paajahup Guite voiced the community’s “profound grief and unyielding sense of injustice” since violence first erupted in May 2023.

The memorandum stated that more than 220 people have been killed and over 60,000 displaced, many still living in relief camps across Manipur and neighbouring states. The organisation accused authorities of failing to deliver accountability, saying, “The silence of justice has become deafening,” and warned that continued inaction could “fracture faith beyond repair.”

Arguing that coexistence under what it called a “majoritarian-controlled state administration” was no longer viable, the group demanded the formation of a separate administrative structure within the Union of India, complete with its own legislature.

The document outlined five key demands: justice and accountability for the violence, creation of a separate administration, protection from forced justice, comprehensive humanitarian relief and rehabilitation, and maintenance of a buffer zone between Kuki-Zo and Meitei-inhabited areas to prevent further clashes.

Reaffirming the community’s trust in India’s constitutional principles, the KSO-DNCR concluded, “We do not seek privilege, we seek justice. Let the Kuki-Zo people not remain exiles in their ancestral land.”