Four leading Kuki-Zo organisations have contested the Manipur government’s claim over the recent attack at Koutruk in Imphal West district by suspected Kuki-Zo militants using drone bombs.

Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM), the apex body of Kuki tribes, said the allegation against the Kuki-Zo people by the state home department that “Kuki-Zo volunteers” used a high-tech drone against the Meiteis is “totally unfounded” with “no credible evidence”.

The KIM said the "recent narrative of drone bombings is fabricated to divert attention from the audio leak” purportedly involving chief minister N. Biren Singh since the “protest" against the audio recordings “had gained significant momentum from all quarters, including national parties”.

The audio clip leak, KIM refers to, is in the news following a three-part report by the Wire website last month about the “purported maker/s of the 48-minute recording (said) that it was done in person at a meeting where the chief minister unmistakably indicated his partisan complicity in the ongoing violence”.

The government had dismissed the audio recordings as “distorted” and was circulating to derail the peace efforts.

The Manipur home department had said on Sunday night the “unfortunate incident of attack on unarmed Koutruk villagers using drone, bombs and many sophisticated weapons... reportedly by Kuki militants causing the death of one person and injuries to many".

It also said "such act of terrorising” unarmed villagers was viewed “very seriously” and was seen as an “attempt to derail” the state government’s peace efforts.

The chief minister heads the home department. The state police in another statement said “in the unprecedented attack” at Koutruk “alleged Kuki militants deployed numerous RPGs using high-tech drones”.

On Tuesday, the chief minister said “dropping of bombs on civilian population and security forces by using drones is an act of terrorism....”

Countering the home department, the Kuki Inpi said it “was well-documented that the Meiteis have utilised drones effectively, including through crowd-funded efforts to acquire advanced technology. The Home department statement was intended to create confusion among the masses and the media, and to create a misleading narrative that distorts facts and unfairly maligns the Kuki community”.

Besides the KIM, three other Kuki-Zo organisations have also contested the government narrative surrounding the drone attacks, which has seen protests in several areas of the Meitei-majority valley districts on Tuesday.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), a conglomerate of recognised tribes in Kuki-Zo majority Churachandpur district, dismissed a media report about “the Manipur situation is being handled by foreign hands, including China and the US”. “The Kuki-Zo conflict has nothing to do with Myanmar, the US, or China. It is a purely ethnic cleansing program of the Meitei against the Kuki-Zo,” it said.

The ITLF said: “Drones are readily available in the market; obtaining them does not require involvement from outside the country.”

“Licypriya Kangujam, a Meitei climate activist, publicly stated on social media that she has procured drones equipped with bomb-dropping capabilities from the US to bomb the Kuki-Zo inhabited areas. Kourunganba, the leader of Arambai Tenggol (a radical Meitei organisation), further asserted that the drone that was utilized on September 1 was their own.”