Imphal/New Delhi:

Ten Kuki-Zo MLAs who have been demanding a separate administration carved out of violence-hit Manipur have requested the Commission of Inquiry, formed by the Home Ministry, to expedite looking into a purported audio tape of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, which, the Kuki-Zo MLAs claimed, proved the Chief Minister was responsible for the outbreak of ethnic clashes in May 2023 in the state bordering Myanmar.

The 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs including from the state’s ruling BJP in a statement on Wednesday said the commission must speed up its process and prosecute Mr Singh “for his crimes if his guilt is established.”

“He must also be immediately debarred from the office of the Chief Minister so that he is prevented from influencing the outcome of the probe against him,” the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs said in the statement.

The Manipur government has refuted the allegations twice – on August 7 when the Kuki Students Organisation (KSO) released a part of the audio clip, and on August 20, when the news website The Wire reported about the matter. The state government has said it was a “doctored audio clip” meant to derail peace talks.

The KSO in a statement on Monday said it was “deeply shocked and outraged by the continued inaction of the government of India regarding the leaked audio recording of Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh.”

The 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs have also doubled down on their allegations citing a Facebook post by the Chief Minister’s brother Rajendro Nong, who the 10 MLAs claimed was “seen threatening those who sold out such sensitive tapes to others.”

Citing the purported audio tape, the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs asked the Union government to expedite their demand for a separate administration in the form of a Union Territory with legislature, “as that alone is the path to lasting peace in the region.”

“The complicity of the CM in the state-sponsored ethnic cleansing, which we have always maintained since day one, has now been established beyond an iota of doubt. The CM can be clearly heard reassuring his audience, which from his tone and tenor can safely be assumed to be members of his militia, that they (central agencies) have to arrest him first before any of them, and that they should not promptly show up when summoned to give him time to intervene,” the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs said in the statement, alluding to the Meitei group Arambai Tenggol, or AT, whose members say they were compelled to take up arms soon after May 3, 2023 due to attacks allegedly by heavily armed Kuki insurgents and in the absence of effective law-and-order enforcement.

The Chief Minister, who belongs to the BJP, is from the valley-dominant Meitei community.

In the early days of the ethnic clashes after May 3, AT chief Korounganba Khuman was seen in visuals walking with a bamboo stick, while in the distance smoke was seen rising from a village behind a treeline. More visuals purportedly of May 3, 2023 showed at least three men in camouflage battledress and body armour, carrying AK series assault rifles, walking towards a field with slogan-shouting protesters from the Kuki tribes. In these visuals too, smoke can be seen rising from huts in the distance.

Some Kuki civil society groups have denied any knowledge of the Chief Minister’s comment in the state assembly that leaders from the Meitei community and Thadou, Paite, Hmar tribes, among others, have been talking about peace at different levels.

These Kuki civil society organisations, the 10 MLAs, and 25-odd Kuki-Zo insurgent groups that have signed the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement (a ceasefire of sorts, yet to be renewed) – all of them have been demanding nothing less than a separate administration, bringing them together on a common platform.

The SoO groups have been in talks for a separate administration – a political settlement – for many years before May 2023, and so the claim by some Kuki leaders that the violence led to their call to break away from Manipur was a lie, since the intention for separation was always there, two leaders in the Manipur government told NDTV, requesting anonymity.

“Thousands of Meiteis and Kukis are living in relief camps. The question everyone should be asking is, why are the displaced people who are living in miserable conditions not being allowed to return home safely? Look at who all are opposing the return of displaced people to their homes. It is not difficult to see,” one of the two leaders told NDTV on phone from the state capital Imphal.

The 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs who requested the commission to act against the Chief Minister have not attended the state assembly sessions since May 2023. They have cited threats to personal safety, and have declined to share space with the Chief Minister citing the violence broke out under his watch and it led to an exodus of people from the Kuki tribes from Imphal. Meiteis also had to leave their homes in Kuki-dominated hill districts and some foothills.

The clashes between the Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes under Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kuki tribes who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want to have a separate administration, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.