Guwahati: Several hundred people on Saturday took out a protest rally in Mizoram’s capital Aizawl to express solidarity with the ethnic tribes of neighbouring Manipur who have suffered immensely due to the ongoing clashes with the Meitei community.
The protest rally was organised by the Zo Reunification Organisation (ZORO), which seeks reunification of all the Zo people — Chin-Kuki-Mizo-Zomi — under one administrative setup.
“The Mizo youths from Mizoram will step out to defend their brethren in Manipur if they continue to face atrocities," said ZORO general secretary L Ramdinliana Renthlei.
The protestors passed several resolutions, including measures to be taken for the reunification of the ethnic Zo tribes to bring them under one administrative setup through peaceful means.
The peaceful protesters reaffirmed that the Zo tribes, which are scattered in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, belong to the same stock and share blood ties. The Zo people are an ethnic group, which inhabits areas of India, Myanmar and the Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh.
The ethnic tribe is also known as the Chin, the Mizo, the Kuki, or a number of other names based on the geographic distribution that speaks the Kuki-Chin languages.
They are spread throughout the northeastern states of India, northwestern Myanmar, mainly in the Chin State, Sagaing Division, Arakan State and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, the Zo people are from the same origin which is originally known as the Sinlung, and even known with other names as the Chhinlung, Khur or Khul.
In northeastern India, they are present in Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram,
The dispersal across international borders resulted from a British colonial policy that drew borders on political, rather than ethnic, grounds.
They speak more than fifty dialects.