Two Kuki-Zo organisations, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR), on Sunday denounced the central government’s decision to confer the Shaurya Chakra to CRPF officer Vipin Wilson.
KOHUR even demanded the “immediate revocation of the Shaurya Chakra awarded” to the official.
The Shaurya Chakra is the country’s third highest peacetime gallantry award.
The CRPF had in a post on X on Sunday night, while saluting the “indomitable spirit” of assistant commandant Vipin Wilson, said he had on November 11, 2024, led a quick action team “to foil a camp attack by insurgents in Manipur, neutralizing 10 of them”.
“For his unparalleled bravery, he is conferred with the Shaurya Chakra this #RepublicDay. DG Shri @gpsinghips & all ranks of #CRPF congratulate our hero,” the
post said.
Condemning the decision, the ITLF had said the 10 deceased were “not” insurgents but tribal village volunteers who were “mercilessly gunned down... by CRPF personnel when they had gone to Jiribam district of Manipur to protect their community after Meitei militants burned a village and killed a woman the previous week”.
An ITLF statement stated that awarding Wilson “is a continuation of the discrimination and injustice meted out to Kuki-Zo tribals
in Manipur....”
The conflict between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos erupted on May 3, 2023, leaving over 265 dead and 60,000 displaced. Manipur is currently under President’s rule.
KOHUR in a statement said the “honour is not an act of national pride but a state endorsement of the extrajudicial killing of ten Kuki-Zo (Hmar) village volunteers in Jiribam” on November 11, 2024.
“This was not an encounter—it was an execution,” the KOHUR claimed. The organisation demanded “immediate revocation” of the award conferred on Wilson and “independent investigation under the supervision of the Supreme Court of India” of the “November 11, 2024, incident”.