The Centre’s decision to ensure free movement on all roads in strife-hit Manipur from March 8 has encountered its first hurdle with a leading Kuki-Zo organisation resolving not to allow such passage until their demand for a political solution to the ongoing conflict is met.

The Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (Cotu) announced the decision during its observance of the 22nd Remembrance Day at the Martyrs Cemetery in Phaijang on Monday. The event is organised in the district on the 3rd of every month since the conflict involving the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos started on May 3, 2023.

Cotu’s resolution on “restricted access” stated that “no free movement shall be permitted in Kuki-Zo areas until a resolution that respects the community’s aspirations
is reached”.

The organisation also resolved to carry forward its “unwavering struggle for a separate administration” by carving out a Union Territory for the Kuki-Zo people, a demand the Meiteis have been strongly opposing. “The Kuki-Zo people will persist until a separate administration is achieved, with no compromise or surrender,” Cotu said.

The resolution evoked a strong reaction from the Imphal-based Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (Cocomi), a Meitei organisation. Cocomi urged the Centre to take “immediate and decisive legal action” against Cotu and its leadership “for openly challenging the sovereignty of the nation”.

While condemning the “provocative and inflammatory statement” issued by Cotu, Cocomi accused the Kuki-Zo outfit of “openly challenging the authority” of Union home minister Amit Shah and the government of India, which it said was a “direct threat to national unity, law and order, and the sovereignty of the Indian state”.

Cocomi said that the resolution against free movement “in Kuki-Zo land is an unlawful act that directly contravenes the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. No entity or community has the legal right to impose restrictions on citizens’ movement within Indian territory.”

March 3, 2025, Security personnel dismantle illegal bunkers at Haraothel area under Leimakhong-PS, in Kangpokpi district of Manipur. PTI

Cotu also wanted Manipur governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla, who held a security review meeting in Imphal on Tuesday, to “withdraw his remarks against a separate administration. Cotu said Bhalla’s engagement on February 25 with the Arambai Tenggol, a radical Metei group, does not dictate the Kuki-Zos’ future, asserting that the arrest of Kuki-Zo volunteers “will be met with consequences, and the district commissioner and superintendent of police will be held accountable”.

Cotu said “a complete and irreversible boycott of the government” would be “enforced” if it imposed peace without addressing the Kuki-Zo political issue.

A Union home ministry statement on the security review meeting chaired by Shah in Delhi on Saturday had directed security forces to ensure free movement on all roads of Manipur from March 8 and take strict action against anyone attempting to
create obstructions.

The security forces have been using escorts to ferry vehicles carrying essentials along NH2 (Imphal to Dimapur via Kangpokpi) and NH37 (Imphal to Silchar via Jiribam) — the two lifelines connecting Manipur’s Kuki-majority hills and Meitei-dominated valley.

On Monday, the police said they ensured the “movement of 217 and 331 vehicles carrying essential items along NH37 and NH2, respectively”. Strict security measures have been taken in all vulnerable locations and “security convoy is provided on sensitive stretches to ensure free and safe movement of the vehicles”, the police said.

Free movement on these routes and other vulnerable roads has been a “casualty” of the ongoing ethnic conflict that has left at least 260 dead and over 60,000 displaced.

Since the conflict erupted in 2023, Meiteis and Kuki-Zos have not been able to set foot in each other’s territory.

Urging the home minister and the Centre “to take immediate and decisive legal action against Cotu and its leadership for openly challenging the sovereignty of the nation”, Cocomi said: “Instead of seeking peace, Cotu has deliberately blamed the Meitei community to cover up its own planned acts of aggression and violence. The home minister’s directive to restore free movement on all state roads by March 8 is a bold and necessary step to restore normalcy in Manipur.”

Reacting to the Cocomi statement, Cotu said it was “nothing but a reaffirmation of their ethnocentric narrative against the minority tribal community, especially the Kuki-Zos, in the region”.

“The nation needs to know” that valley-based groups such as Cocomi “are the mouthpiece and frontal organisations behind this hegemonic ideals of hatred and perpetrators of mass genocide programme on the Kuki-Zo community since the 3rd of May 2023”, the Cotu statement said.

A Kuki-Zo activist told The Telegraph over the phone from Delhi that Cotu’s objection to free movement in Kuki-Zo areas was not aimed at the Centre or the home minister. “It is to prevent a law-and-order situation. Branding Kuki-Zos as anti-national is part of the Meitei narrative. The Centre has to analyse why the Kuki-Zos are seeking a separate administration,” the activist said.