Ukhrul, Feb 21: The Kuki-Zo Women’s Forum has strongly condemned the ‘blatant distortion of facts’ propagated by Bimol Akoijam, MP of Inner Manipur, during his recent interview regarding the origins of the ongoing conflict. The forum labeled his statement a deliberate misrepresentation of history and a calculated attempt to absolve the Meitei community of responsibility for the ‘premeditated’ violence that unfolded on May 3, 2023.
In a sharp rebuttal to the MP’s statements in the interview, the forum claimed that by repeating a false narrative that aligns perfectly with the propaganda machinery of the Meitei establishment, the MP has revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to twist reality to serve his community’s supremacist agenda.
Detailing the events of May 3, the forum asserted that while SoO cadres were seen with assault rifles, they did not fire the first shots, which Bimol conveniently ignored. The forum accused the Meitei side of firing the initial shot, citing a video purportedly showing a Meitei youth firing a pistol at civilians.
“This single incident dismantles Bimol’s entire argument and raises a fundamental question: who empowered the Meiteis to take up arms against unarmed civilians? It is absurd to suggest that a ‘protest’ could naturally lead to mobs carrying sophisticated weaponry unless there was prior orchestration by elements within the Meitei leadership. The truth is clear: the Meitei militias, supported by state forces, were prepared for violence long before May 3,” the forum stated.
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Further, the forum accused Bimol of deliberately obscuring facts while overlooking a critical sequence of events. It noted that the first provocation did not arise from the Kuki-Zo people, but from Meitei miscreants who, around 2:30 PM on May 3, 2023, set fire to the Anglo-Kuki War Centenary Gate at Leisang village. This act was not random vandalism but a calculated move designed to incite the Kuki people into reacting, giving the Meitei mobs and state forces the perfect pretext to unleash violence. The involvement of individuals associated with radicalized groups like Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, along with the presence of BJP Youth Morcha leader Barish Sharma, a close aide of then Chief Minister Biren Singh, makes it abundantly clear that this act was pre-planned. The burning of the Centenary Gate was the spark meant to ignite a firestorm of violence that the Meitei leadership had meticulously prepared for.
What followed was a coordinated assault on the Kuki community, the forum stated adding that even as the Kuki locals rushed to extinguish the flames at the Centenary Gate, Meitei mobs had already begun mobilizing in the Torbung and Kangvai areas, their ranks filled with armed radicals from Arambai Tenggol, Meitei Leepun, and police commandos acting in collusion. It also stated that before this event, the Meitei volunteers had allegedly started assaulting Kuki-Zo individuals returning from the peaceful ATSUM rally in Churachandpur, an attack intended to provoke the Kuki people into a confrontation.
“Houses in Kangvai Bazaar were vandalized, Kuki individuals were beaten, and yet Bimol Akoijam dares to claim that the Kukis started the conflict,” the forum chided. It also said that had the SoO cadres fired upon the Meiteis on May 3rd, the number of Meitei casualties that day would have been significantly higher.
The forum pointed out that on the first day of the violence, the Kukis suffered an overwhelming number of injuries and were the first to suffer fatality. Meitei casualties only began to mount in the following days when they launched large-scale, coordinated attacks on Kuki villages. This reality shattered Bimol’s fraudulent claim that the conflict began with an armed assault by the Kukis. And in truth, the SoO cadres had rather than instigating violence, kept their people in check preventing an all-out escalation that could have resulted in far greater bloodshed and accused the MP of conveniently ignoring this as it did not fit the Meiteis’ narrative.
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Stressing further, the Kuki-Zo Women’s Forum contended that the real roots of the conflict started before May 3rd under the systematic ethnic persecution of the Kuki-Zo people by the N Biren Singh-led Manipur state government. The internet blackout had been imposed in Churachandpur before the violence even broke out indicating that the state was already preparing to suppress any form of Kuki resistance while allowing Meitei militants to act with impunity, it said
“For months, Biren Singh had been using state machinery to ostracize and demonize the Kuki-Zo people, spewing communal rhetoric on state media, criminalizing entire Kuki villages under the guise of an anti-encroachment drive, and enabling Meitei militant groups to arm themselves under the direct protection of the police. Bimol consistently ignores this orchestrated campaign of subjugation and instead cherry-picks May 3rd as the beginning of the conflict to suit the Meitei supremacist agenda,” it remarked.
“It is no surprise that Bimol Akoijam, despite his academic credentials, has chosen to act as a mouthpiece for Meitei propaganda rather than as a neutral observer of history. His statements mirror word-for-word the manufactured lies peddled by Meitei extremist groups, raising serious questions about whether he is merely repeating what he has been fed by political forces who seek to rewrite history. If he were truly interested in the truth, he would acknowledge the systematic targeting of Kuki-Zo villages, the state-sponsored radicalization of Meitei youth through extremist groups like Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, and the fact that the conflict was not an explosion of sudden violence but the culmination of years of Meitei aggression against the Kukis,” the Kuki-Zo women body said.
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Additionally, the forum said that history will not be written by the lies of opportunists like Bimol Akoijam but will be recorded by the undeniable facts that this conflict did not erupt out of nowhere but was the result of a long-brewing campaign of ethnic cleansing spearheaded by the Meitei-controlled state government.
“No amount of distortion will erase the truth of the atrocities committed against the Kuki Zo people. KZWF will continue to expose these false narratives and hold accountable those who seek to manipulate history for their political gain. The world is watching, and no amount of revisionist propaganda will change the reality of what transpired,” the statement concluded.
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