IMPHAL (The Thursday Times) — The killing of three Meitei men that reopened Manipur’s ethnic faultline this month may have begun as a dispute over the felling of trees, an official investigation has found, as checks on Kuki armed groups’ camps turned up most of their registered members missing.
Villagers had complained to local armed groups that Meitei men were regularly cutting trees and carrying away wood in the Khongbal Sunulok hills on the Imphal East–Kangpokpi border, The Indian Express reported, citing officials. Gunmen and village volunteers are suspected of stopping a vehicle carrying Meitei men who had come to collect wood on October 19; when the men tried to flee, the gunmen opened fire, killing three.
“It appears the initial intention was to scare the Meiteis or at best to detain them and make them pay for their release. But things turned ugly and people were killed,” a security officer told the newspaper.
Arrests and buried guns
Officials suspect the Kuki National Front (Nehlun), which has denied any role. Manipur Police have arrested three village volunteers, who led investigators to eight weapons buried underground, one of which appeared to have been fired recently and is being examined by forensic experts.
Camps under scrutiny
The killings have renewed scrutiny of Kuki camps run under the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement, which lapsed last month and has not been renewed. A surprise inspection of the Sinai camp at Semol village on October 20 found 18 people instead of 159 registered cadres of the Kuki National Army and Kuki Liberation Army, and only one of them was a registered member. The other 17 were using fabricated identities and have been arrested. Security forces took over the camp and seized 24 firearms and 38 magazines, with some ammunition unaccounted for.
Similar checks at three or four other camps since six abducted Naga men were killed in May have found only 30–40% of registered members present, officials said, and the government could withhold the stipends paid to camp residents unless every inmate is identified. Kuki sources called the October 19 killings “unfortunate and ill-timed”, saying they had been trying to mend ties with Meiteis while locked in a nine-month conflict with Naga groups.
The raid on the Sinai camp led the Kuki-Zo Council this week to threaten to pull its MLAs out of the state government over what it called “selective action”.
