The Kuki-Zo Women’s Forum (Delhi & NCR) has condemned the recent killings of four Kuki-Zo men in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, calling it a “brutal act of militarised oppression.” The group alleged that the 21 Para Special Forces and Assam Rifles targeted unarmed tribal youths who were volunteering to defend their villages amid ethnic violence.
BY PC Bureau
New Delhi, November 5, 2025: The Kuki-Zo Women’s Forum (Delhi & NCR) has condemned the November 4 killings in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, denouncing them as a “brutal and targeted act of militarised oppression” carried out by the 21 Para Special Forces and the Assam Rifles. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the forum asserted that the four men slain in the operation were not militants, but village volunteers who had taken up the responsibility of protecting their communities amid ongoing ethnic strife.
Labeling the operation as a “grave violation of human rights,” the forum accused security forces of carrying out extrajudicial killings under the pretext of counter-insurgency operations. The statement, signed by the forum’s Department of Information and Publicity, asserted that the deceased were wrongly branded as members of the United Kuki National Army (UKNA).
“These were local youths whose only objective was to safeguard their villages and civilians from continued assaults and displacement by valley-based armed groups,” the statement read. “Calling them militants is an attempt to justify unlawful killings and perpetuate a false narrative of insurgency.”
The forum argued that the deployment of elite counter-insurgency units like the 21 Para (SF) and Assam Rifles against “unarmed tribal volunteers” violated the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution and international covenants such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Describing the incident as part of a “long and tragic pattern” of state-sponsored violence, the Kuki-Zo Women’s Forum accused the Biren Singh-led government of overseeing a “collapse of constitutional order” and “replacement of law with militarised impunity.”
The statement issued four key demands:
- Immediate intervention by the Government of India and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to probe the alleged extrajudicial killings.
- Institution of an independent judicial or NHRC-supervised inquiry to ensure transparency and accountability.
- Suspension and prosecution of the 21 Para (SF) and Assam Rifles personnel involved.
- Urgent review of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and compensation and security for the victims’ families.
“The unchecked militarisation and ethnic bias that define governance in Manipur today have led to systematic violations of justice,” the forum stated. “True peace cannot be achieved through bullets and repression. Justice and equality before law must be restored for every citizen, irrespective of tribe or community.”
The statement reflects growing outrage among Kuki civil society groups over what they describe as a series of “state-sponsored atrocities” amid ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur since May 2023.
