Nemcha Kipgen (File photo)
GUWAHTI: Around a dozen protesters were wounded in a clash with security forces in Manipur’s Churachandpur Thursday as initial resentment within the Kuki-Zo community over its MLA Nemcha Kipgen agreeing to be a deputy CM in the reinstated NDA government snowballed into a backlash. The influential Kuki Zo Council declared a social boycott of any legislator from the community joining CM Yumnam Khemchand Singh’s govt.Protesters burned tyres and blocked roads in Kangpokpi district, and at least one group called for a shutdown in the hills.Joint Forum of Seven calls for shutdown in Kuki-Zo areasNemcha Kipgen, who took the oath of office Wednesday over videoconferencing from Delhi’s Manipur Bhawan, is one of two tribal understudies to CM Khemchand Singh alongside Naga MLA Losii Dikho.KZC views Kipgen’s consent as “defiance of a collective mandate” not to be part of the govt until the Centre acknowledges the community’s long-standing demand for administrative separation from the Meitei-majority Imphal Valley.Joint Forum of Seven (JF7), a group of Kuki freedom fighters within Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Azad Hind Fauz, called for a total shutdown on Friday across the state’s Kuki Zo-majority areas. A protest rally has been planned in Churachandpur.In Kangpokpi, roads littered with burning tyres signalled a return to unrest after a period of relative calm across the hills. The armed Kuki Liberation Army issued a “clear and final warning” that any Kuki Zo representative joining the govt would be deemed to have betrayed the community.Complicating the situation, Thadou Inpi Manipur took the opposite stand, congratulating Kipgen on what it termed her “historic appointment as the first Thadou tribal” to hold the office of deputy CM. It urged her to “ fearlessly and unequivocally reject Kuki identity” and dissociate herself from “separatist agendas”. Thadou Inpi Manipur claimed Kipgen holds a Thadou tribe certificate and was elected from Kangpokpi (general) constituency.
