Imphal( Manipur), November 19: Kuki organization has on Tuesday organised a a 'coffin rally' in Churachandpur to pay tribute to 10 Kuki-Zo youths killed in an alleged gunfight with the Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF) in the state's Jiribam district,
The Zomi Students' Federation (ZSF), Kuki Students' Organisation (KSO) and Hmar Students' Association (HSA), in a joint statement on November 18, called for schools and colleges to send students from Class 10 onwards to participate in the rally wearing black shirts, it added.
one of the organisers said the rally would include the symbolic carrying of 10 dummy coffins to pay their respects to the dead.
Autopsies on the bodies were conducted at a hospital in Silchar (Assam) and brought back to Churachandpur, which is a Kuki-majority district, in the afternoon on November 16. Bodies of the 10 dead youth are still in the morgue of this local hospital, it added.
The Kuki-Zo communities' Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) on November 17 said they would not hold funerals for the 10 killed youth till their postmortem exam reports are handed over to the families, the report said.
According to the Manipur Police, 10 suspected militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces on November 11. They claimed that the insurgents were dressed in camouflage and carried sophisticated weapons.
Police claimed the suspected militants had kidnapped three women and three children from the district, and fired indiscriminately at the Borobekra Police Station and an adjacent CRPF camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam.
Over 220 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence in the northeastern state of Manipur since May 2023. The fighting is between the Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups.
