Condemnation of the Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) statement on the killing of six Naga civilians continued to grow on Sunday, with the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) and the Zeliangrong Student Union, Nagaland (ZSUN) along with the Zeliangrong Students’ Union, Delhi (ZSUD), rejecting the KZC chairman’s remarks, condemning the use of the term “Kacha Naga,” and reiterating demands for justice.
In separate statements, the organizations said the KZC statement failed to address the “cold-blooded abduction, torture and murder of six innocent Naga civilians” and instead diverted attention from the central issue.
The NSF said it “outrightly” rejected the KZC statement, alleging that it was “a blatant attempt to divert attention from the fundamental issue” of the killing of six Naga civilians “whose families continue to await justice.”
“The issue before us is neither political propaganda nor competing narratives but the brutal loss of six innocent Naga civilian lives,” the Federation said.
The ZSUN and ZSUD similarly rejected what they termed the KZC’s “so-called apology,” asserting that it “neither constitutes a genuine apology nor an admission of the unlawful and inhumane crime committed.”
“On the contrary, it amounts to a direct challenge and insult to the Naga people,” the two organizations stated, adding that “justice cannot be supplanted by rhetoric, nor can accountability be substituted by carefully crafted declarations bereft of legal consequence.”
Both statements strongly condemned the KZC chairman’s use of the term “Kacha Naga.”
The NSF said it was “deeply disturbed by the divisive and derogatory terminology employed to loosely project the Naga people as ‘Kacha Naga’,” adding that “it is outrageous that organizations representing the Kuki-Zo community should seek to classify or redefine the identity of the indigenous Naga populace.”
The Federation further claimed that the use of the term exposed “the irony of those whose historical presence and settlement in the Naga homeland barely a century ago during the British colonial period, who were brought in as porters and coolies for administrative and logistical purposes only, now presuming to classify and redefine the identity of the indigenous Naga people.”
“By what authority do such groups question the identity of the Nagas in their own ancestral homeland?” it asked.
The Zeliangrong student bodies described the expression “Kacha Naga” as “wholly unacceptable, historically untenable, and profoundly offensive.”
“The expression ‘Kacha Naga’ is not, and has never been, the name by which the Naga people identify themselves,” they said, describing it as “a colonial-era misclassification born out of administrative ignorance and imperial convenience, weaponized over generations to demean, diminish, and delegitimize the identity, history, and dignity of the Naga people.”
According to ZSUN and ZSUD, its use by the KZC chairman “reveals a disturbing persistence of prejudice and communal disdain” and “amounts to a direct challenge against the identity, history, and dignity of the Naga people.”
The NSF also rejected what it described as attempts to divide the Nagas into “‘Southern’, ‘Northern’, ‘Eastern’ or ‘Western’ Nagas based on shadow lines,” saying such narratives had “long been propagated… to further fragment and weaken the collective identity of the Nagas as one people.”
“Our ancestral homeland may today be scattered by subjugation and militarization, but no artificial frontier can alter our common history, shared identity or our collective destiny as a Naga,” it stated.
Reiterating their demands for justice, the NSF said, “No carefully worded statement, however crafted, can substitute for justice,” while ZSUN and ZSUD maintained that “no statement can be deemed credible, sincere, or acceptable until the perpetrators responsible for this abominable crime are brought before the law.”
The NSF demanded that “every individual responsible for the abduction and killing of the six Nagas” be “identified, arrested, prosecuted and punished in accordance with law,” and also called on the Government of India to “immediately abrogate the Suspension of Operations (SoO) arrangement with the Kuki narco-militant groups.”
Meanwhile, ZSUN and ZSUD urged the Governments of Manipur and India to ensure those responsible for the killings are “identified, apprehended, and punished in accordance with the law without any further delay.” They also called on the Government of India to remove the term “Kacha Naga” from official records and appealed to media organizations to refrain from using what they described as the derogatory term.
The Zeliangrong student bodies further appealed to all Naga organizations, churches and civil society groups to respond “with urgency, firmness, and collective solidarity,” while urging Naga youths to remain “calm, united, and disciplined.”
Both statements concluded by reaffirming solidarity with the families of the six slain civilians and maintaining that justice and accountability must prevail.