IMPHAL (The Thursday Times) — Security forces in India’s Manipur state recovered the bodies of two missing Kuki-Zo youths on Sunday, a day after three men from the same community were killed in a gunfight in Noney district, taking the weekend’s toll in fresh ethnic violence to five.
Police identified the dead as Paoginlal Hangsing and Tinginlun Chongloi, both 20, who went missing from Taphou Kuki village on October 28. A joint team of the Manipur Police, the CRPF’s CoBRA commandos, the Assam Rifles and the Rapid Action Force found the bodies east of National Highway 2 along the Senapati–Phaibung road. They were taken to Kangpokpi, where tension remained high.
The Committee on Tribal Unity in Sadar Hills had called a 48-hour total shutdown in Kangpokpi district after the two disappeared, demanding their safe release. The shutdown was still in force on Sunday. Police said search and combing operations would continue to identify and arrest those responsible.
On Saturday, three Kuki men were killed when an exchange of fire broke out at Kekru Naga village in Noney and went on for several hours. Kuki Inpi Manipur, the community’s apex body, blamed Naga armed groups for the killings and demanded “justice, accountability and immediate state action”. Another Kuki body called the attack a “direct unprovoked assault” on the community in its homeland.
Kuki–Naga clashes have flared since February, when a Naga man was allegedly assaulted by Kuki men. The killing of three Kuki pastors in May, allegedly by Naga armed groups, set off a cycle of abductions and revenge killings by both sides.
The new deaths come as huge crowds rallied in Imphal demanding an end to the ceasefire arrangement between Kuki armed groups and the Indian state. The Kuki community is also locked in a separate conflict with the mainly Hindu Meitei majority that began in May 2023 and has killed more than 300 people. More than 60,000 people displaced by that violence still live in relief camps.
