GUWAHATI: Kuki-Zo organisations in ethnic violence-hit Manipur criticised the central government on Monday for its decision to award the Shaurya Chakra to a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer and demanded its revocation, citing it as an endorsement of extrajudicial killing.
According to an official release, Assistant Commandant Vipin Wilson from the CRPF’s 20th battalion received the honour for thwarting an armed attack by the insurgents on a CRPF post in the Borobekra area of Manipur’s Jiribam district on November 11, 2024. The CRPF saluted his indomitable spirit and unparalleled bravery.
However, the honour ruffled the feathers of the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR) and the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF).
“This honour is not an act of national pride but a state endorsement of the extrajudicial killing of ten Kuki-Zo (Hmar) village volunteers…” KOHUR said in a statement.
According to the organisation, credible evidence, including forensic reports and eyewitness testimonies, confirmed that the deceased were unarmed or minimally armed civilians performing community defence duties during a period of ethnic violence.
“The state narrative labelling them as militants is a fabrication designed to justify a one-sided, disproportionate use of lethal force. This was not an encounter; it was an execution,” KOHUR said.
It demanded immediate revocation of the Shaurya Chakra awarded to the CRPF officer and all related commendations to his team. Further, it demanded an independent investigation into the incident under the supervision of the Supreme Court and with the participation of credible human rights observers, prosecution of all personnel found responsible for unlawful killing, misuse of force, and subsequent efforts to disguise the facts.
The ITLF said the ten tribal village volunteers were killed when they had gone to Jiribam to protect their community after alleged Meitei militants killed a Hmar woman the previous week.
“There was no cause for the village volunteers to attack a CRPF post, as alleged by authorities. The men were a ragtag bunch of mostly daily-wage labourers from different villages…and not trained militants as alleged by the police,” the ITLF said.
The organisation viewed the award given to the CRPF officer as a continuation of the “discrimination and injustice meted out to Kuki-Zo tribals in Manipur.”