IMPHAL (The Thursday Times) — Armed groups in Manipur’s hill districts killed at least 23 unarmed civilians, including seven women, in a single month this autumn, as fighting between Naga and Kuki militants that began in February has turned villagers into the main targets, according to an analysis by the Indian outlet Scroll.
Of the 23 killed between August 27 and September 27, 12 were Naga and 11 were Kuki. Scroll found that most of the at least 51 people killed since the conflict began were unarmed civilians, not combatants. Residents in both communities say the government and security forces are largely absent from the affected areas.
A month of ambushes and arson
On August 27, four Naga civilians travelling to a meeting in Senapati were killed in an ambush on the Imphal-Tamenglong road; Naga leader Timothy Wijunamai blamed the Kuki National Front (Presidential), and a police official said suspected Kuki armed groups carried out the attack. The dead included leaders of Naga councils and schools.
On September 13, militants fired on a group of seven people in Longpi village, Noney district, after a Sunday church service, killing Thangvel Roel Gangte, 43, and Julie Singson, 22, who was two months pregnant; a third victim, Ester Gangte, 22, died later in hospital. The same day in L. Tollen village, Tamenglong, Lhingzangai Singsit, a mother of five, was shot dead in her home; her husband was wounded and later died of his injuries.
On September 15, two villagers working their fields in Leisangphai, Tamenglong — Phalneichong Sitlhou, 76, and Kimjalhng Singson, 28 — were shot dead; village authorities blame Naga armed militants. On September 21, a 17-year-old Naga boy, NK Wiphenbou, was ambushed near his village on the Tamei-Kuilong road, allegedly by Kuki militants. On September 23, armed Kukis set fire to 41 Naga homes and churches in Makui, Kangpokpi district, forcing residents to flee to Senapati, while a 36-year-old Kuki electrician was shot dead in Tamenglong in an attack a police complaint attributes to NSCN-IM cadres. On September 24, Kuki cadres attacked Pilong village in Kamjong district, near the Myanmar border, killing four of the five men who had stayed behind after women and children evacuated.
‘No one to defend them’
Residents in Longpi told Scroll no army or government forces protect them; the village’s school has closed and most residents have left. Wijunamai said security forces took two days to reach Makui after the arson there, and asked why thousands of personnel stationed at district headquarters were not deployed to vulnerable villages. Former Assam Rifles Director General Shokin Chauhan said armed groups were deliberately targeting “soft targets” in isolated villages to sustain the violence.
Naga and Kuki leaders accuse both the federal and Manipur state governments of offering only condemnations. The Kuki Inpi organisation says 29 Kuki villages have been attacked, looted or burned, displacing more than 2,000 Kuki civilians. Scroll said the Manipur police chief, the state’s chief secretary and a defence ministry spokesperson had not responded to questions by the time of its report.
Roots of the conflict
The current Naga-Kuki fighting was triggered by a minor dispute in Ukhrul district in February, but reflects a longer-running conflict: Kuki demands for a separate administration over most of the state’s hill districts, which Naga groups oppose, and rival claims to a lucrative trade route on the Indo-Myanmar border. Security analysts link the violence to rivalry between groups affiliated with NSCN-IM and Kuki armed organisations.
It follows two earlier rounds of ethnic bloodshed in the state: Meitei-Kuki clashes that began in May 2023 killed at least 300 people and displaced thousands, entrenching a partition that bars Meiteis from the hill districts and has pushed Kukis out of the Imphal Valley, while Naga-Kuki fighting in 1993 lasted roughly five years and killed hundreds.∎
