Imphal: Manipur’s Kuki organisations will hold a ‘coffin rally’ in Churachandpur today to pay tribute to the ‘10 Kuki-Zo youths’ killed in an alleged gunfight with CRPF in Jiribam district.
Schools and colleges have been asked to send students from Class 10 onwards to attend the rally in black shirts, as mentioned in a joint notice by the Zomi Students’ Federation (ZSF), Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO) and Hmar Students’ Association (HSA) on Monday.
According to the organisers, the rally will include the symbolic carrying of 10 dummy coffins to pay their respects to the dead.
Autopsies on the bodies were conducted at a hospital in Silchar (Assam) and brought back to Churachandpur, which is a Kuki-majority district, in the afternoon on November 16.
The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), a prominent Kuki-Zo community organisation in Manipur, announced on Sunday that the funerals would be delayed until postmortem reports are provided to the families.
According to the Manipur Police, 10 suspected militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces on November 11. They claimed that the insurgents were dressed in camouflage and carried sophisticated weapons.
Police claimed the suspected militants had kidnapped three women and three children from the district, and fired indiscriminately at the Borobekra Police Station and an adjacent CRPF camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam.
ALSO READ: NIA takes over probe of three Manipur violence cases
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.
