New Delhi: The Kuki Students' Organisation-Delhi and NCR on Saturday held a peaceful rally at Jantar Mantar demanding justice and a separate administrative arrangement for the Kuki-Zo community in Manipur, citing over two years of continuing ethnic violence and displacement.

The rally, held under the theme "Forged Government is Forged Justice; Separate Administration is True Justice," was attended by students, human rights defenders and community leaders, who called for constitutional and human rights protection for the affected community, a statement said.

In a memorandum submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the organisation's president Paajahup Guite expressed the community's "profound grief and unyielding sense of injustice" since violence erupted in Manipur in May 2023.

"For more than two years, the Kuki-Zo people have lived through an unending nightmare marked by targeted killings, burning of villages, desecration of churches and forced displacement," the statement read.

It said over 220 lives have been lost and more than 60,000 people remain displaced across relief camps in Manipur and neighbouring states.

"Despite clear evidence and numerous appeals for accountability," Kuki Students' Organisation-Delhi NCR said justice has remained elusive. "The silence of justice has become deafening," it said, warning that continued inaction could "fracture faith beyond repair."

The organisation asserted that coexistence under a "majoritarian-controlled state administration" has become impossible and sought the creation of a separate administrative set-up within the Union of India, with its own legislature.

The memorandum also highlighted five key demands — justice and accountability for the violence, creation of a separate administration, safeguards against forced justice, humanitarian relief and rehabilitation, and maintenance of the buffer zone between Kuki-Zo and Meitei-inhabited areas to prevent renewed conflict.

Reiterating faith in India's constitutional ideals, the organisation said, "We do not seek privilege, we seek justice. Let the Kuki-Zo people not remain exiles in their ancestral land."