Manipur: Kuki groups to hold coffin rally to ‘pay tribute’ 10 slain youths

A platform of Manipur’s Kuki organisations said a 'coffin rally' will be held on Tuesday at Churachandpur to pay tribute and show solidarity to the 10 Kuki-Zo youths, who were killed in an alleged gunfight with CRPF in Jiribam district of Manipur.

In a 'joint public notice' on Monday, Zomi Students' Federation (ZSF), Kuki Students' Organisation (KSO) and Hmar Students' Association (HSA) directed schools and colleges to send pupils from class 10 onwards to participate in the event wearing black shirts.

One of the organisers told PTI that they will symbolically carry 10 dummy coffins to pay their respect for the slain youths as the bodies are still lying in the morgue of a local hospital.

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After the autopsy conducted at a hospital in Assam’s Silchar, the bodies reached Churachandpur, a Kuki-majority district, on Saturday afternoon.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), a key organisation of the Kuki-Zo community in Manipur, on Sunday, decided that the funeral of 10 youths will not be conducted till their postmortem examination reports are handed over to the families.

The Manipur Police on November 11 claimed 10 suspected militants were killed in a fierce gunfight with security forces after insurgents in camouflage uniforms and armed with sophisticated weapons fired indiscriminately at Borobekra Police Station and an adjacent CRPF camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district.

The suspected militants abducted six civilians - three women and three children - from the same district, police had claimed.

More than 220 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups since May last year.