Two killed in Manipur gunfight as hostilities flare afresh

Fragile peace maintained over the past month-and-a-half in strife-torn Manipur was rattled with the death of two people on Saturday as a bloody gunfight erupted between two armed groups in a village bordering Kangpokpi and Imphal East districts, marking the first death in clashes in the northeastern state in at least 46 days.

Also Read | Manipur car blast: NIA files charge sheet against 2, including main conspirator

Since Thursday night, the state now has reported at least three separate incidents of violence. On Friday, two men were injured in a gunfight with militants at Tengnoupal. Later in the evening, militants disrupted and dispersed a gathering of people in Bishnupur district who had assembled to meet Congress Lok Sabha candidate for inner Manipur, Bimol Akoijam.

The violence came just six days before general elections begin in the restive state.

Saturday morning’s gunbattle took place at around 9am as militants from the two sides engaged in an exchange of heavy gunfire in a border region between Kuki and Meitei villages.

Also Read | Amit Shah likely to visit Manipur on April 15

People aware of the matter said that the gunfight had started in the area of Kamu Saichang village. The villages in Kangpokpi are close to the Meitei villages such as Moirangpur in Imphal East. Meities live in the valley districts such as Imphal East, while Kukis live in the hill districts such as Kangpokpi.

Security forces did not comment on which group started the gunfight, but confirmed the gunbattle in the morning and that the situation was now “under control”.

“The area where the gunfight happened is the border between Kuki and Meitei villages of the two districts. It has happened in the jungle area of the abandoned village on both sides. Security forces rushed to the hills where the gunfight happened. Currently the situation is under control,” an official aware of the matter said.

Also Read | PM Modi says ‘marked improvement’ in situation in violence-hit Manipur

Lenin Haokip, chief of Kuki-inhabited L Chajang village in Kangpokpi, said the two men who died were Kamminlal Lupheng (23) and Kamlengsat Lunkim (22), according to other defence volunteers. Originally residents of Nongdam Kuki and Bongjang village next to Kamu Saichang, the two were working as village defence volunteers. Their families live in relief camps in the Kangpokpi town area.

“Kuki village volunteers were guarding the abandoned village from hill top near Kamu Saichang after reports of militants mining sand from Kamu Saichang village. This morning, militants dressed as security forces arrived in the village. This is when village defence volunteers walked down the hills in the jungle to check if they were indeed security forces or militants. The gunfight started at around 8.30am. The militants came with heavy gunfire and fired mortars. Two men died in the gunfight,” Haokip said.

Senior Manipur police officials from Imphal East district which is probing the matter said they are yet to collect the bodies because the incident happened in the hills above the buffer zone. “We could not retrieve the bodies because of two reasons, one was the sporadic gunfire and presence of militants in the area. The second is because the gunfight happened in the hills above the buffer zone.”

Also Read | AFSPA extended for another 6 months in Manipur

Manipur police officials are yet to officially issue a statement on the case.

A police official, who asked not to be named, said that the gunfight lasted till around 3pm in the afternoon. “There were some rounds of gunshots fired between the armed village defence volunteers of both sides on Thursday night also.”

The Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU), a Kangpokpi-based Kuki civil society, ordered a complete shutdown of Kangpokpi for 24 hours. COTU in a statement said that “illegal quarry and pilferage of villages” was the precursor towards the incident on Saturday.

The killing also eroded the tenuous peace established in the state by security forces and highlighted that ethnic tensions — especially between the Kukis and the Meiteis — continues to run high. It also pushed the death toll in the state to 221.

Over the last two days, there were two separate incidents of violence reported in other parts of Manipur.

Two Meitei people sustained injuries in firing between militant groups in the Tengnoupal district on Friday. The two men were rushed to Raj Medicity hospital in Imphal, where their condition is stable. The gunfight had started at the Pelyang village on Thursday night and continued till Friday evening.

At around the same time when security forces had controlled the situation in Pelyang village and militants from both groups fled to the jungle, there were reports that militants disrupted and dispersed a gathering of people who had assembled to meet Congress Lok Sabha candidate Bimol Akoijam.

Akoijam’s legal team on Saturday filed a complaint with the Manipur chief electoral officer in which they said that on Friday, a crowd of around 400-500 people had gathered at Phairenbam Mandop in Moirang for a public interaction with Akoijam. “Suddenly 5-6 gunshots were fired upon the gathering crowd by unknown persons and the crowd started running away to save their lives. The unidentified gunmen also threatened the organisers and the crowd not to convene the meeting and disperse immediately. The crowd had to disperse and the meeting was completely disrupted,” the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee’s legal team said in the complaint, seeking action against the gunmen.

The party also demanded security and more personnel in the valley areas of Inner Manipur constituency.

Manipur is set to go to vote for the two Manipur Lok Sabha constituencies in two phases on April 19 and 26.

A senior security force officer, who asked not to be named, said, “It is unclear why the violence has suddenly started again. Even in the last one month, there were cases of militants from both sides firing in the air to make their presence felt. But the groups were not directly clashing with each other for a while. It is true that around 5,000 security forces personnel have been removed from Manipur to go to another state for election duty. People here are aware of it. But it will be too early to say why violence has started again.”

Manipur has been in the throes of a violent conflict since May last year. What began as an ethnic conflict between the majority Meiteis who reside in the Imphal valley and the tribal Kukis, has grown into seemingly irreconcilable cleavages within Manipuri society, with 221 people killed and an estimated 50,000 left people displaced, armed militia prowling the streets, police forces divided on community lines, and lives being led in enclaves of fear.