The Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement was presented as a pathway to peace for Kuki armed groups under the KNO and UPF. In practice, it has become a cage sanctioned by the state. By signing the SoO, Kuki leadership handed operational control to New Delhi and confined their cadres to designated camps. The promise was dialogue and a political settlement. The result has been the systematic dismantling of the Kuki community’s ability to defend its land, villages, and identity — a direct violation of the right to life and security.
Under the SoO framework, India effectively controls KNO and UPF leaders. Cadres cannot mobilize outside camps without army clearance, and any retaliation against raids is treated as a violation. This means that when hostile forces move into Kuki areas, the very groups that once formed for community defense are legally barred from responding. The agreement stripped Kuki militants of the power to protect their own people, leaving civilians exposed to arson, murder, and displacement while political talks remain stalled year after year.
The human cost is staggering and ongoing. Under this SoO regime, Meitei groups have burned down more than 200 Kuki villages and killed more than 250 Kuki civilians. With Kuki fighters camped and monitored, there was no armed shield left between the villages and the mobs. The SoO did not bring peace; it created a state-enforced security vacuum that enabled targeted ethnic violence. This constitutes a grave breach of Article 3 and Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — the right to life and the right to property.
The latest development proves the collapse of the arrangement and the depth of the rights crisis. Despite the SoO, Naga armed groups including NSCN-IM, ZUF-K, and NSCN-EF have carried out coordinated attacks on Kuki villages. In one of the most brutal incidents since March 2026, more than 14 Kuki civilians were killed, among them three pastors and a pregnant woman. The SoO was supposed to regulate armed actors and prevent bloodshed. Instead, it has rendered the Kuki community defenseless by design, while the state fails to intervene against aggressors.
For the Kuki community, the SoO has exposed a pattern of state betrayal and structural discrimination. The Government of India promised a political settlement as the core of the agreement. Years have passed with no roadmap, no deadline, and no delivery. The talks have become a process to neutralize resistance, not to deliver justice. To the villages under fire, the government’s promise is not just broken — it is complicit in the denial of basic human rights and equal protection under law.
Because the SoO binds Kuki groups while failing to restrain others, the Government of India has abdicated its basic duty to protect Kuki lives and land. Security forces guard the camps, not the villages. Buffer zones are drawn, but raids continue across them. Displacement runs into the tens of thousands, churches are destroyed, and cultivation cycles are broken. The agreement has not secured life or territory; it has overseen their destruction under state watch. This is not mere negligence. It is a state-sponsored human rights violation.
The denial of the right to self-defense, the targeted destruction of homes, the killing of civilians including religious leaders and women, and the forced displacement of an ethnic community meet the threshold of crimes demanding international scrutiny. When a community is disarmed by agreement and then left to face arson and killing, the state becomes an active party to the violation. The SoO has turned from a ceasefire into a one-sided surrender, with international human rights law trampled in the process.
The broader message to tribals and minorities in India is equally stark. The Kuki experience shows how peace processes can be used to sideline and manage tribal political demands while eroding their human rights. Sign an agreement, enter a camp, wait for talks — and watch your right to life and dignity die while your villages burn. That is why many now call the SoO the suicide of the Kuki political demand and the burial of their human rights.
The Government of India must choose: either deliver the political settlement promised under SoO, or admit the agreement has failed and lift the restrictions that prevent Kukis from defending themselves. Continuing the current arrangement is not neutrality. It is participation in ethnic persecution.
We therefore call upon the United Nations Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and world leaders to immediately intervene. The Kuki community in India is facing an ongoing human rights catastrophe under a state-brokered agreement. Independent international monitors must be allowed access, and the Government of India must be held accountable for the protection of Kuki lives, land, and fundamental rights before more villages are razed and more lives are lost.
