Imphal, March 7 The Kuki-Zo Council (KZC), the apex body of Kuki-Zo tribals in Manipur, on Friday urged Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla to further extend the time limit to return the looted and illegally held arms and ammunition.
The top leaders of KZC and its associated organisations held a crucial meeting in Churachandpur on Thursday and on Friday, announcing their decision, said that the council would make a public call to surrender and submit the looted arms.
"This undertaking would be carried out in all the Kuki-Zo tribal inhabited districts. Since the call cannot be implemented in a short matter of time, the Council would like to request the Manipur Governor to extend the due date for the submission of arms for another couple of weeks so that proper facilitation of the same can be initiated,” the KZC said in a statement.
Responding to the Governor's appeal, 196 looted and illegally held arms, including many sophisticated weapons, were returned to the police on Thursday, the last date of surrendering the arms, in eight districts of Manipur -- Churachandpur, Bishnupur, Thoubal, Imphal East, Imphal West, Kakching, Jiribam, and Pherzawl.
Till Thursday (March 6), a total of 967 looted and illegally held weapons, including many sophisticated arms, and a huge cache of ammunition, were returned to security forces since Governor Bhalla made the appeal for the first time on February 20.
"Effective recovery of the looted arms in the Valley can only be engendered with the uniform application of law,” the council said.
The KZC reaffirmed the Kuki-Zo tribals' political demand for a separate administration, in the form of a Union Territory with a legislature, under the Constitution (Article 239A) and "to pursue this demand relentlessly and unceasingly until our demand for SA is granted", the statement said.
It said that on the matter regarding free highway movement, the Council welcomed the Ministry of Home Affairs move to enforce the free movement of essential commodities within the state.
"However, until and unless there can be a pact for cessation of hostilities between the warring communities, the KZC cannot guarantee free movement of people across buffer zones and cannot take responsibility for any untoward incidents," said the statement, signed by KZC's Information Secretary, Khaikhohauh Gangte.
Gangte said that until a political solution is reached through dialogue, the KZC found it premature for government employees belonging to the Kuki-Zo community to be posted in places where their physical and psychological security cannot be guaranteed. He said that the Council felt the need to question the extension of AFSPA (Armed Forces (Special Power) Act) in the ten hill districts and the exclusion of 19 police station limits in six districts, mostly in the valley region, inhabited by the Meitei people.
The KZC also expressed its disappointment at the "failure to honour the assurance made by the government officials to visit Churachandpur to meet the council leadership within 10-14 days" and on whose assurance its proposed rally on February 18 was called off.
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