Re-installation of Cross atop Mt Thangjing CPPKT decries, demands legal action

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Dec 1: Taking strong exception to the re-installation of a Cross on the sacred site of Ibudhou Thangjing atop Thangjing Hills, the Committee on Protection and Preservation of the Historical Rights of Koubru and Thangjing Hill Ranges (CPPKT) has urged the Government to take up legal action against the miscreants.
By reinstalling a Cross on the sacred site of Ibudhou Thangjing, the Kuki miscreants have been openly defying the Constitution of India and the laws of the country, said a press release issued by CPPKT.
The same act smacks of total disrespect towards the State Government, it said.
The CPPKT decried the Government’s failure to take up concrete actions against such acts of desecrating sacred sites and religious places of Meitei and other indigenous communities.
Urging the Government to initiate necessary legal action and pull up all the Kuki-Zo miscreants, the CPPKT said that the State Government should be held accountable for any untoward incidents resulting out of such insulting and blasphemous acts.
It appealed to the State Government to come out with official statements/announcements if any Cross, flag, bunkers and other unwanted elements are removed from the sacred sites of Meitei community.
Earlier, CPPKT condemned in the strongest terms when the ZRA (Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA) militants installed Cross and hoisted their flag on the sacred site of Ibudhou Thangjing on September 11, 2023.
The CPPKT also demanded removal of both the Cross and the flag, and also to arrest all the miscreants, it recalled.
In connection with this insulting, blasphemous and provocative act, the CPPKT lodged a complaint to the State Government, Supreme Court of India and the UN Headquarters.
The sacred site of Thangjing covering four hectares, the sacred site of Koubru covering two hectares and the Lai Pukhri covering four hectares (approximately) have been already declared as a protected sites under Section 4 of the Manipur Ancient & Historical Monument & Archeological Sites and Remains Act 1976, it pointed out. The WMC filed a case at the Supreme Court on November 28 on protection of Ibudhou Thangjing’s sacred site and other sacred sites of indigenous peoples.
The case has been listed for hearing on December 4, 2023, it mentioned.
The CPPKT also dismissed the memorandum submitted by the World Kuki-Zo Intellectual Council (WKZIC) to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which claimed that Meitei used to pay tax in the form of tobacco to Kuki chiefs for collecting wood and other forest produces from the hills as totally baseless and sheer fabrication.