IT News
New Delhi, Jan 15:
Delhi Meitei Coordinating Committee (DMCC) expressed shock by the brutal killing of four innocent civilians (Meeteis) who went missing on the afternoon of 10/01/2024.
A statement from the Committee said that the victims, who went into the nearby hills to collect firewood, tragically lost their lives in a senseless act of violence by suspected Kuki militants. They have been identified as Oinam Romen Meitei (45), Ahanthem Dara Meitei (56), Thoudam Ibomcha Meitei (53) and Thoudam Anand Meitei (27). Two are from the same family – Thoudam Anand is the son of Thoudam Ibomcha. Wounds and deep cuts on the bodies of the victims are enough evidence of high torture. Ahanthem Dara Meitei was found with a bullet mark in his right temple and a broken leg.
The Meeteis have always depended on the neighbouring hills for firewood and other livelihoods. Above this, we have a strong religious and cultural attachment to the hills where there are our ancestral temples. It is our indigenous practice since time immemorial to worship our indigenous God and Goddess idolized on the top of hills on the auspicious day of Meetei’s Cheiraoba (one of the oldest Meeteis religious festivals).
It is our indigenous traditional right to visit the hills either for worship or to collect livelihood. It is condemnable and inhuman to the highest level to call the ruthlessly murdered poor civilians “WOOD THIEVES” as even reported by India Today Northeast. It has been eight months that the conflict has been played out with massive destruction of lives and property to the common people. The central government has deployed more than 60,000 paramilitary forces and has even created the much-controversial “buffer zone.”
It can be mentioned that areas, where much of the gunfire exchanges happen, are in this “buffer zone” and also where AFSPA are in place. One wonders how all these killings of innocent civilians are happening right under the watch of the central armed forces. This killing is a sign of complete lawlessness in the hill areas where armed miscreants and more than a dozen Kuki SoO militant groups are roaming freely without any respect for law and order and the presence of central armed forces and AFSPA too.
A victim said “All are very poor people. It is just like that fishes are handed over to cats to eat. It is so sad. Such killing is so sad. Such brutal killings will be happening in the future also. Poor people will go to work (to collect firewood) to feed themselves. To make survive ourselves, poor people like us will go to work. If they are killing poor people like this, when they are going to get firewood, how will poor Meetei people survive? Pabung (father) Biren, will you remain silent by looking at such killing of poor people? Instead of surviving like this, kill all of us. All brutally killed three one was my maternal uncle; one was my paternal uncle and one was my elder brother. So many Meetei people have been killed in such a manner. How poor people will survive and what to eat? If poor people do not go to work, who will feed the poor? It is so sad that if poor people are not human beings! Poor people have also hearts. If poor people do not work, who will feed us? How will you see and live in such a condition? All the people who are working at these foothills are all poor people”
