Markets, buses and autorickshaws stayed shut in Manipur's Kangpokpi district on Friday as a tribal organisation observed a 48-hour shutdown over the killing of a Kuki woman in firing on the Kangpokpi-Senapati border, while a second incident in Ukhrul district left a Naga farmer wounded.
Kimneineng Chongloi, 42, of Taphou Kuki village, was harvesting paddy around 11 am on Thursday when firing broke out between suspected rival armed groups in the area between Taphou and Kailengjang in neighbouring Senapati district. She was found dead in the field with the sickle she had been using still in her hand, officials said. Two villagers, Sehngam Chongloi, 34, and Lamkhochon Chongloi, 46, were hit by bullets and taken to hospitals in Kangpokpi; Sehngam was later referred to Imphal, where he was admitted to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences.
Police said additional CRPF, BSF and Assam Rifles personnel were deployed, the nearby villages cordoned off and search operations begun to stop the violence spreading. A senior officer said all three victims belonged to the Kuki community and that who fired and what the motive was were "yet to be ascertained". No armed group has been named by the police.
The Committee on Tribal Unity, which called the shutdown from midnight, blamed the NSCN-IM and the ZUF-K for the attack, an allegation it has made publicly without police confirmation, and demanded the withdrawal of central and state forces from Kangpokpi, particularly those operating under the Senapati district police chief. It also wants Taphou Kuki village brought under the Kangpokpi district police rather than the Senapati police station. Schools, hospitals and emergency services are exempt from the shutdown.
Deputy Chief Minister Nemcha Kipgen condemned the killing as a "heinous act of violence" and "an affront to human dignity", and called for a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation.
Hours later, around 3 pm, police said suspected Kuki armed men fired from Lungter Hills towards farmers of Sinakeithel village in Ukhrul district. Newton Mahung, 45, was hit in the right shoulder and evacuated to the district hospital in Ukhrul. Security forces drawn from Ukhrul district police, the BSF and the 6th Manipur Rifles retaliated and moved the other farmers out, police said in a statement.
Thursday's killing came days after two Kuki youths from the same village were abducted and killed. Paoginlal Hangsing and Tinginlun Chongloi, both 20, went missing from the vicinity of Taphou Kuki village on October 28 and were found dead in Senapati district on November 1, a killing that had already triggered a total shutdown in Kangpokpi. The state government has moved to hand that case to the National Investigation Agency, with the ADGP (law and order) saying the proposal was at an advanced stage, and Chief Minister Y. Khemchand Singh met the bereaved families on Tuesday.
More than 300 people have been killed in the Meitei-Kuki conflict since May 2023, with 49 still missing, and at least 50 people have died in clashes between Kukis and Nagas in the hill districts since February this year.
(Compiled from PTI and media reports with the help of our in-house AI tools, and edited by our desk)