Kuki Council Slams Manipur Highway Bus Resumption

LAMKA — The Kuki Human Rights Council on Friday condemned the resumption of public bus services on National Highway 2 linking Imphal, Dimapur and Guwahati, calling the move "forced peace" imposed on a community still awaiting justice more than three years into Manipur's ethnic conflict.

In a press release, KHRC said the service, which restarted the same day with 125 passengers traveling in two buses and five smaller vehicles, was "undemocratic, unconstitutional" and amounted to an imposition of state power on what it described as a wounded and divided people.

The council disputed government claims that the vehicles passed through Kuki-majority Kangpokpi district and Naga-dominated Senapati district "without any incident," saying the absence of trouble was only possible because the entire highway had been "sanitized and militarized," with Meitei civilians escorted by security forces through Kuki ancestral land.

KHRC said many Kuki people remained in relief camps, with no justice delivered for what it called ethnic cleansing carried out since May 2023, and accused the Indian and Manipur governments of favoring the Meitei community while perpetrators of violence went unpunished.

The council also alleged New Delhi was pursuing "divide-and-rule" tactics by using surrendered militant groups, Suspension of Operations factions and proxy civil bodies to lend legitimacy to the highway reopening.

KHRC called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grant a separate state or Union Territory with legislature for the Kuki people, and urged the National Human Rights Commission and international rights bodies to take note of what it termed state-sponsored majoritarianism.

"Peace without justice is oppression," the council said. "We will not accept it."

The statement was issued by the Department of Information and Publicity of the KHRC, headquartered in Lamka, Manipur.