The Jiribam Carnage: Long Live the 10 Kuki-Zo Jiri Martyrs!

India is a federal state. The legitimacy of Centre and state relations permits arrangement for Central and state forces to operate together, where necessary. However, in Jiribam, the incident of 10 Kuki volunteers, being shot on their backs, reveals flaws in the joint operation. The evidence is in the definitive Silchar Medical College Hospital autopsy, which was pending until receipt of the chemical analysis reports of viscera from the Directorate of Forensic Sciences (DFS), Guwahati (‘Many gunshots, mostly on back, killed 10 Kuki youths in Manipur’s Jiribam, reveal autopsy reports’, DT NEXT, PTI 1 December 2924, https://www.dtnext.in/news/national/many-gunshots-mostly-on-back-killed-10-kuki-youths-in-manipurs-jiribam-reveal-autopsy-reports-813349); https://thewire.in/government/10-kuki-zo-youths-killed-in-manipur-had-multiple-fatal-bullet-injuries-mostly-on-the-back-report.

The 10 bodies were mostly riddled with multiple bullets shots on the back; additionally in 4, one eye from each was gouged. Curiously, although the incident described as ‘encounter’ occurred on the same date 11 November, the bodies were brought to SMCH, staggered: 6 on 12th, and 4 on 14th. This spells foul-play, which is typical where state forces figure: the volunteers were first rounded up, presumably while they were engaged in conversation with the CRPF, and the state forces shot them from behind.

Anomalies of the state forces’ ‘encounter’ theory:
Various individuals from the Meitei community often assert, ‘Kukis never fire at the Indian Security Forces’; equally uncharacteristic is that the Kuki volunteers would expose themselves in an open field, other than in confidence of CRPF, to be shot in the back.

Analysis:
The supposed joint operation against the Kuki volunteers suggests possible naïveté of the one-month-old deployment of the CRPF battalion, and the explicit action of the state forces combined with Arambai Tenggol and UNLF(P) in Manipur Police uniform. The village volunteers did not have any axe to grind with the CRPF; they did with the state forces and co, who raped, butchered, and burnt the mortal remains of Zosangkim, a Junior High School teacher and mother of three children, at her home in Zairawm village, Jiribam on 7 November 2024.

Conclusion:
Since the state chief minister-sponsored genocide of Kukis on 3 May 2023, the state forces complicity, particularly in the valley, Imphal has been incontrovertible. Live video footages abound. The role of the Central Forces to safeguard the two warring communities on either side of the buffer zone has been exemplary. Ironically, the Assam Rifles, much criticized by the valley ethnic community for favouring the hill people have killed Kuki protesters in Lamka, never any Meitei protesters in Imphal.

The ‘encounter’ in Jiribam could not have happened with Kuki volunteers facing their backs to the CRPF. As on previous occasions, the incident is a repeat of state forces and Meitei radicals in Manipur Police uniform killing Kukis in the valley, and at Moreh, across the buffer zone.
Eyes gouged out from the victims is a trade mark of the Arambai Tenggol, evident in mutilation of dead bodies on several occasions, emblematic of the Nongsha, a lion god in Sanamahism and Meitei mythology. The CRPF, who are professional soldiers would abide by the Geneva Convention and respect the dead, even an enemy, and not engage is such unprincipled and inhumane activity.

Lastly, the CRPF could not have simply been a bystander to the cowardly carnage had there not been a tacit nod from Premjit, the Meitei DIG. Backed by contrary irrefutable evidence, i.e. the autopsy report, the Manipur state police statement of ‘encounter’ falls flat.
Clearly, heads must roll – question is whose head in this politically corrupt misgoverned failed state, Manipur?

(The writer is a social activist based in Lamka)