Three children and three women are missing from Manipur’s Jiribam since yesterday after an encounter broke out between suspected Kuki insurgents and the security forces. The children include a two-year-old baby. The Manipur Police in a press conference today said the 10 killed in the encounter had enough firepower to create chaos in the affected area in Jiribam, near the border with Assam.

Civil society groups of the Kuki tribes have said the 10 were not insurgents but “village volunteers”, and have sought a thorough investigation into the circumstances that led to their killing.

“Security forces have launched an operation to search for the missing people. They are three women and three children. The Assam Rifles, Border Security Force and the Central Reserve Police Force will retaliate if fired upon,” a senior Manipur Police officer told reporters in the state capital Imphal today.

The police officer said a total of 13 internally displaced people were reported missing yesterday from Jiribam. Two have been found dead, five have been traced, and six are missing, the officer said.

The two bodies were identified as two senior citizens from the Meitei community. Both were found inside a structure that was set on fire by the militants, the police officer added.

Narrating the sequence of events yesterday, the police officer said the suspected militants began the attack at 2.30 pm on Borobekra police station, and moved towards a CRPF camp a few hundred metres away.

“The militants were armed with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher, INSAS and AK assault rifles. The CRPF fired back after coming under attack. The gunfight lasted 45 minutes. We found 10 bodies after that,” the police officer said.

There is a small settlement between the police station and the CRPF camp, and the suspected Kuki militants set several houses on fire, a police officer in Jiribam’s Borobekra told NDTV.

The Meitei community has mobilised to hold candlelight vigil in some cities; in Imphal valley, a shutdown has been called and a silent protest is being organised.

The latest round of violence in Jiribam began on Thursday last when suspected Meitei insurgents attacked a village of the Hmar tribe. A woman from the Hmar tribe was killed in the attack. Her husband in a police case alleged she was shot in the leg, raped and then set on fire by the suspected Meitei militants. Civil society groups of the Kuki tribes have accused the Manipur government of keeping silent on Thursday’s attack.

The next day, a woman from the Meitei community was shot dead allegedly by suspected Kuki militants while working in a paddy field in the valley district Bishnupur. While Meitei civil society groups alleged the firing came from a nearby hill, the Kuki tribes have denied the shooting, citing the long distance from the nearest hill to the paddy field where the woman was hit.

“Village Volunteers”

Civil society groups of the Kuki tribes have also claimed the 10 men who were killed in the gunfight in Jiribam were “village volunteers”. They alleged the CRPF opened fire without provocation. However, the security forces have released visuals of the weapons they claimed were found in the hands of the “militants”. They included an RPG launcher, and AK and INSAS assault rifles.

The Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO) – a top student body of the Kuki tribes – in a statement said “no CRPF personnel shall be allowed to leave their camp premises” as part of a larger movement of “non-cooperation against the CRPF” in Kuki-dominated areas.

“Any CRPF personnel found in violation of this notice shall do so at their own risk and responsibility,” the KSO said in the statement, which has been verified as genuine by a senior KSO official to NDTV. The KSO official, who requested anonymity, said the Kuki tribes have been “pushed to the wall” and yesterday’s deaths of “11 village volunteers” have hurt the community immensely. The weapons claimed to have been found in the hands of the “village volunteers” could be from anyone, the official said.

“We are aware of what we have said in the statement; it is out of desperation. Who is listening to us? We are not endorsing violence. But we feel helpless. The central forces are supposed to be neutral. The CRPF is under the Home Ministry,” said the KSO official, adding the nuances of the angst of the Kuki tribes after the “Jiribam horror” shouldn’t be seen in a binary manner. “There is someone behind all this, while the two communities fight. This is what everybody should know,” the official said.

Central Forces In Manipur

Central security forces including the Assam Rifles have faced allegations of bias while operating in Manipur. The valley-dominant Meitei community has often alleged Assam Rifles of going soft on Kuki militants due to the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement.

The Kuki tribes had protested against the Centre’s move to shift two Assam Rifles battalion to Jammu and Kashmir, to be replaced by CRPF in the areas in Manipur the Assam Rifles had vacated.

However, the Assam Rifles has had many controversial events with the Meitei community during its decades-long counter-insurgency operations. At least eight Meitei insurgent groups are banned by the Home Ministry as “terrorist organisations”.

The only time any authority in Manipur admitted to the involvement of insurgent groups of both the Meitei community and the Kuki tribes was on September 9, after five bodies were found following a fierce gunfight.

Three of the bodies were confirmed as Kuki insurgents from Churachandpur district; the fourth was identified as a Kuki volunteer from Jiribam; the fifth was identified as a member of the Meitei insurgent group United National Liberation Front (Pambei), or UNLF(P), the police had said in a statement.

The three Kuki insurgents were members of the Kuki Liberation Army (KLA), a signatory of the SoO agreement. The UNLF(P), too, had signed a ceasefire deal with the Centre and the state government. The UNLF is the oldest Meitei insurgent group, which later broke up into two factions; the Pambei faction signed a tripartite peace agreement with the Centre and the state government in November 2023.

Experts who have been tracking northeast insurgency for many years have told NDTV that there may be many more instances of involvement of insurgent groups from both sides in the Manipur violence, but which have never made it to the public.

The Kuki tribes and the Meiteis have been fighting since May 2023 over a range of issues such as land rights and political representation.