#Oped|| "Nagalim for Christ": When the Gospel Was Replaced by the Machete at Zoupi (1993)

#Oped|| "Nagalim for Christ": When the Gospel Was Replaced by the Machete at Zoupi (1993)

On the quiet afternoon of September 12, 1993, a heavy dread fell over the hills of Manipur. The NSCN-IM, led by Thuingaleng Muivah under the pious banner of "Nagalim for Christ," had issued an unyielding "quit notice" ordering Kuki villagers to abandon their ancestral soil. Wanting only peace and survival for their families, the villagers of Zoupi chose not to resist. Packing whatever minimal belongings their hands could carry, they abandoned their homesteads, standing crops, and ancestral graves, setting out on foot toward Taphou as an unarmed caravan. They believed that complying ahead of the deadline would spare their lives. Instead, that journey became an inescapable slaughter. On September 13, 1993, the fleeing column was intercepted along the mountain trails. Armed cadres halted the caravan, separated eighty-eight men from their weeping wives and children, bound their hands tightly behind their backs, and blindfolded them. Refusing even to waste bullets, the attackers systematically hacked, beheaded, and bludgeoned the defenseless men to death in broad daylight, right before the eyes of their families. That very same day, coordinated attacks struck neighboring settlements: thirteen were slaughtered at Gelnel, four at Santing, and three at Nungthut, bringing the single-day death toll to 108 innocent souls. Decades later, some still attempt to rewrite history, diluting an orchestrated campaign of ethnic cleansing into mere two-sided clashes. But the documented facts remain unshakeable. Across the bloody years between 1992 and 1997, over 1,150 innocent Kukis were murdered, more than 360 villages were reduced to ash, and over 100,000 people were violently displaced—crimes for which neither an apology, judicial accountability, nor customary amends have ever been offered. Today, even as the pursuit of justice remains endlessly delayed and denied by the powers that be, the black flags of Sahnit-Ni rise once more across the hills to proclaim that silence will never replace accountability, and the martyrs of Zoupi will never be forgotten. #KukiBlackDay #NSCNIMMassacre