Imphal/New Delhi:

Two minor siblings who hid in fields during an attack by “Kuki militants” in Manipur’s Jiribam district on November 11 have given details of what they saw that day.

The elder of the two said he managed to run from “armed Kukis” before they took away his family at gunpoint.

His younger brother said he was in another house with an uncle and an aunt; they too hid in a field.

Their mother, Telem Thoibi Devi, 31, and eight-year-old sister were among six members of their family who were kidnapped and killed by suspects identified as “Kuki militants” by the state government. The other four were their grandmother, mother’s sister, her infant baby, and three-year-old son.

NDTV is not disclosing their identities since they are minors and also eyewitnesses to a case which is now being handled by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

“I was hiding in a field. I couldn’t get up as I was scared of getting shot,” the 12-year-old survivor said.

“I was with an uncle in another house, some four houses away (from where his family members were). When I got out to see, the Kukis came shouting expletives. The CRPF was there, but all of them had gone for lunch. Only one (soldier) was behind,” said the 12-year-old son of Thoibi Devi, whose decomposed body with four bullet wounds in the chest was found floating in a river in Jiribam.

The autopsy report of Thoibi Devi also said both eyes were dislodged from the sockets; her scalp was lacerated at many places, the skull bone was broken and pushed in, and her head was crushed.

The 12-year-old boy said there were women among the attackers in Jiribam’s Borobekra village.

“They came in two packed vehicles, some came walking. They were diesel autorickshaw, the big ones. They surrounded (us) from all four sides. I didn’t see how many women were there, but I saw their faces. I didn’t see them set houses on fire. I saw smoke rising from there while hiding in the field with my uncle and aunt,” he said. “My brother was with my mother. He managed to run.”

The eldest among the three siblings, who is 14, also said the attackers came in autorickshaws. He was with his mother, sister and the other family members.

“They were armed, they jumped out and started shooting at the house. Two of them came and kicked the door. They told us to get out, which we did. A total of four were outside. One of them held my arm and hit my face with the butt of the gun. There was a huge swelling here,” he said, and touched his face to show the affected area.

“I managed to run. They fired a few rounds. They (family) were taken away at gunpoint. I hid in a nearby field. I saw a Casper (armoured vehicle) pursuing them towards the bazaar, towards the ghat, where there are steps (on the banks of the Barak River),” he said.

“It was a CRPF Casper, the small, white one, which looks like a Scorpio. It was damaged in the gunfight. We heard the gunshots,” he said.

Civilians in Manipur often call any large armoured SUV or truck “Casper”, after the Casspir mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle used in counter-insurgency operations.

The police in Jiribam had released a photo of a white SUV with numerous bullet holes, which they claimed were fired by militants.

The eyewitness accounts of the two young boys appear to corroborate with what other eyewitnesses in Jiribam’s Borobekra had reported.

Laishram Herojit, whose three family members including wife, infant and three-year-old son were killed, told NDTV on November 13 that he got a call from his wife when shooting and arson broke out. The call got disconnected and when he dialled her back, he found the phone was switched off.

“She was crying on the phone. She said they were surrounded by a lot of armed people. The call got disconnected, after which I called her back, but the mobile was switched off. My mother-in-law’s phone was also switched off. About an hour later – and we had been searching for a while – a Bengali friend of my wife told us she saw them being taken away in a boat,” Mr Herojit told NDTV.

The 10-month-old infant was shot in the knee, stabbed in the chest, and hit with a blunt object on the jaw, according to the postmortem report shared by the family. Both eyeballs were missing, and maggots were present in the infant’s body which was found in an advanced stage of putrefaction, the autopsy report said. There were bruises all over the face and a sharp cut in the abdomen. The “chop wound” on the infant’s chest fractured the ribs, the autopsy report said.

The Kuki militants had split up into two groups, one that took the family of six, and the other that moved towards the CRPF camp, police sources have said. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp and the police station in Jiribam’s Borobekra are less than 1 km from the Barak River (see map above).

The yellow line is the distance between the river and the CRPF camp (approximately 600 metres), while the white line is the distance between a small settlement and the police station (approximately 350 metres). The small settlement is on the upper tip of the white arrow. This is where the houses were set on fire by the Kuki militants after attacking the police station, according to police sources.

The CRPF engaged them in the open stretch between the larger settlement towards the direction of the river and the camp, which is next to the small settlement that was set on fire, sources had said.

Civil society groups and leaders of the Kuki tribes have claimed the 10 men were “village volunteers”.

The police have, however, called them “militants” and showed assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher as recovered from them, and the bullet-ridden SUV.

Political leaders across party lines have condemned the killing of women and children in Manipur. Most have said the latest incident was a terror attack considering it was not a skirmish between two communities in a riot-like situation, but a calculated, premeditated kidnapping operation with an intention to kill them.

The latest round of violence in Jiribam began on November 7 when suspected Meitei militants 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 that attack.

The Manipur cabinet in a statement on November 16 had said “Kuki miscreants” burnt several houses and attacked Borobekra police station in Jiribam district on October 19. This attack and not the November 7 attack led to a fresh cycle of violence, sources have said.

There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the Meitei-dominated valley. The clashes between the Meitei community and the nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.

Imphal/Guwahati/New Delhi:

The Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) timely intervention during a “terror attack” in Manipur’s Jiribam district prevented the loss of several lives, Chief Minister N Biren Singh told NDTV on Thursday.

Mr Singh said “10 Kuki terrorists” tried to enter a relief camp in Jiribam’s Borobekra where 115 internally displaced people were living, but the CRPF foiled their plan. All the 10 were shot dead in a gunfight with the central forces on November 11 in Borobekra, a village on the interstate border with Assam. One CRPF soldier was injured.

“If the CRPF was not deployed, the lives of many civilians would have been lost. The Kuki terrorists came with rocket launchers, AK 47, and many sophisticated weapons. They attacked the (police) camp, and killed two people on the spot,” Mr Singh told NDTV.

“They were trying to enter Borobekra relief camp where 115 Meitei civilians were living. But due to the timely intervention by the CRPF, the lives were saved. Otherwise that scenario could have been different. It’s very unfortunate that eight innocent people were killed. The two died in the attack, and six including three small children were kidnapped and mercilessly killed. It is an intolerable crime,” the Chief Minister said.

Civil society groups and leaders of the Kuki tribes have claimed the 10 men were “village volunteers”. The police have, however, called them “militants” and showed assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher as recovered from them. A bullet-ridden vehicle of the security forces was shown as one of the targets of the “militants”.

At least two dozen suspected Kuki militants had split into two groups before launching the attack in Borobekra, police sources had told NDTV. While one group took six Meitei hostages, the other group of 10 men vandalised and set fire to houses, and killed two senior citizens from the Meitei community. These 10 were later shot dead in the encounter with the CRPF, police sources have said.

The six hostages were from the same family – a woman, her infant child, her two-year-old son, her mother, her sister and her sister’s daughter – all were killed in captivity by suspected Kuki militants. Their bodies were dumped into a river. Days before the Borobekra attack, a mother of three from the Hmar tribe was allegedly raped and killed by suspected Meitei militants during a night attack on a village in Jiribam.

Mr Singh said the Manipur cabinet’s resolution was placed “after a lot of thought”, adding the Centre sent more forces to catch the “militants”. “You can’t deal with Kuki militants without the forces. The operations have already started. This was the demand,” he added.

The Manipur cabinet has sought to declare the militants involved in the Jiribam terror attack of taking hostages and killing them as an unlawful organisation, or a terror group. He expressed confidence that the Centre would look into the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA, by keeping in mind the “pulse of the people of Manipur” and will surely do something about it.

The AFSPA, which gives sweeping powers to the security forces to operate in “disturbed areas” without fear of court proceedings, was reimposed in six police station areas of Manipur’s valley region.

Protests had also broken out in the valley areas when the partially decomposed bodies of the six hostages were found. The Chief Minister told NDTV that vandalism that happened during the protests was carried out by vested interests and rivals.

“The people came out to protest in shock after hearing about the killings of the six innocent women and children. They were simply rallying and appealing to the government and MLAs, not involved in the violence. The arsonists stole many things from the houses they targeted. It was not the public. They were peacefully protesting, rallying. The troublemakers were the defeated group, politically desperate group, politically motivated gang, who looted and attacked homes. No one from the public attacked the MLAs’ houses. The public was in the bazaar, protesting,” Mr Singh said in the state capital Imphal.

The Chief Minister said that in one MLA’s house, some 600 people came and spoke to him, and after agreeing to their demands of bringing justice in the Jiribam terror attack case, the group of people left.

“Another group of 200 or so people came. These were the ones who created trouble. We have identified them. There is video evidence. Most wore masks, but we know them. They have stolen gold, cash, even eight paddy bags from an MLA’s house. What’s all this?” Mr Singh said.

On the much controversial War on Drugs campaign, the Chief Minister said at least 500 acres of poppy cultivation has been detected in Kangpokpi district, which sprang up fast as the security forces are tied up with other priority tasks.

“Due to the present crisis, security has been tied up in some areas and cannot go out. Taking advantage of this, six villages in Kangpokpi are cultivating a huge amount of illegal poppy. Earlier, the forces used to go in the morning and evening to destroy illegal poppy cultivation. At least 500 acres are being cultivated,” Mr Singh told NDTV.

“We have asked the Chief Secretary to send forces to destroy the poppy farms in Kangpokpi before they can be harvested. They want to destroy the youth of Manipur by making them addicted to drugs, they want to harm India. They are using many strategies to invade India,” he said.

The Kuki tribes have often criticised Mr Singh for allegedly singling out the community and branding them as a people who encourage drug trafficking, even though many members of other communities have been arrested in narcotics cases.

To bring peace in Manipur, Mr Singh said, the Centre had called both sides and started talks. “From the state government’s side, we sent MLAs, leaders to Guwahati, Kolkata, Delhi for talks. Political dialogue, negotiations, interactions, these are the things that will help bring peace,” he said.

He faulted the media for allegedly not reporting the whole picture from Manipur, where he said trouble is confined to two-three districts, and not the entire state where people from different communities are living together in peace.

“Differences between communities have been there for a long time. After my government came, I launched the go-to-hills campaign, go-to-village, meet with people from different communities, bring them together, we honoured every community, and constructed a museum of everyone’s culture and traditions,” the Chief Minister said.

“The Sangai ethnic park has the model of houses of every tribe to show oneness… we are all proud Indians, we are all proud Manipuris, and almost succeeded except for the present scenario with this one community. But other communities are living together. Go to Imphal and see. There are churches, temples, masjids. Trouble is happening only in one-two districts, not the whole Manipur. The national media needs to be aware of all this,” he said.

When violence broke out in May 2023, temples were razed and set on fire in many hill areas, while churches in the valley areas also suffered the same fate.

To a question about the National People’s Party (NPP) withdrawing support to his government, Mr Singh told NDTV he is not worried.

“The Congress has only five leaders. They won only five seats after 15 years… There’s nothing to worry about. Whether the NPP withdraws or not, there is enough of a majority. Those who want to give an excuse at a time when the state is going through hardships, let them be. For example, if a lifeguard runs away when an incident is about to happen, let him run away. I am here to save everyone,” he said.

There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the Meitei-dominated valley. The clashes between the Meitei community and the nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.

New Delhi:

A protester was shot dead during a clash between security forces and a mob in Manipur’s violence-hit Jiribam district, officials said Monday. A police official in Imphal said a young man, identified as K Athouba, was killed in an exchange of gunfire Sunday night.

It is unclear who fired the bullet that killed the 21-year-old.

However, protesters have claimed Manipur Police special commandos had fired their weapons to disperse the mob, and that Athouba was killed in the firing and two others were injured.

A police official countered, saying the mob had attacked and vandalised properties of various leaders’ houses and political party offices Sunday night. The official said the mob first vandalised properties carried out arson attacks in areas under the Jiribam Police jurisdiction.

They were protesting the killing of three women and three children on November 11.

There was violence on Saturday too; a mob protested outside the homes of at least two ministers, including Health and Family Welfare Minister Sapam Ranjan, and three MLAs in state capital Imphal, officials said.

This was hours after the cops found the six bodies – five days after the women and children from the Meitei community were taken hostage by suspected Kuki insurgents. Top sources in the Manipur government told NDTV the bodies were found in neighbouring Assam.

The Assam Police are on high alert in the area.

The women and children were taken hostage by a group of suspected Kuki insurgents from Jiribam’s Bokobera neighbourhood while another group of insurgents were engaged in a gunfight with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), sources have said.

Ten of the suspected Kuki militants were shot dead in the encounter.

A group of people from the Kuki tribes surrounded SMCH and began a protest to block the transport of the 10 bodies kept in the morgue. They claimed the 10 Kuki men killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”.

The protesters this morning blocked policemen who tried to take the 10 bodies out of the hospital for transport to Manipur’s Kuki-dominated Churachandpur. The Kukis want the bodies to be handed over to them in Silchar, from where they plan to take the body towards neighbouring Mizoram.

Fighting broke out in the northeastern state more than a year ago between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki community. The conflict has simmered since then, splitting previously cohabitating communities along ethnic lines.

Guwahati/New Delhi:

For Laisharam Herojit, a relief camp inmate from the Meitei community in Manipur’s Jiribam district, the worst fears have come true – his family has been executed.

Mr Herojit, in an almost inaudible, slow voice, told NDTV on phone from Jiribam, “It is true”.

His two children, wife, mother-in-law, wife’s sister and her son are dead, killed in captivity by suspected Kuki militants after they were taken hostage on Monday from the town bordering Assam.

The partially decomposed bodies of Mr Herojit’s 60-year-old mother-in-law and his two-and-half-year old son were found floating in a river near Jiribam, the police said today.

Mr Herojit’s son’s headless body was found wedged between some broken tree branches floating in the river. Eyewitnesses told NDTV arms were missing from the boy’s body.

The semi-naked body of the boy’s grandmother was found floating in the river, face down.

The boy, L Chingheinganba, and his grandmother, Y Rani Devi, were taken hostage at gunpoint along with the four other family members on Monday, amid an encounter between the militants and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Jiribam’s Borobekra, some 220 km from the state capital Imphal.

Three bodies were brought to a hospital morgue in Assam’s Silchar at 7.30 pm on Friday. They were Mr Herojit’s eight-month-old baby, his wife’s sister, and her eight-year-old daughter. The body of Mr Herojit’s wife is yet to be recovered, though government sources have confirmed all six were dead.

Soon after reports of the tragedy came on Saturday morning, violence broke out in the state capital Imphal, with protesters vandalising houses of MLAs of the ruling BJP and trying to storm Chief Minister N Biren Singh’s official bungalow.

The protesters are angry over what they claim was inaction by the government on launching a rescue operation and lack of communication from the authorities before it was announced all the hostages were found dead.

At least two dozen suspected Kuki militants split into two groups before launching the attack in Jiribam’s Borobekra on Monday, police sources told NDTV. While one group took civilian hostages, the other vandalised and set fire to houses, sources said.

Ten militants in the group that attacked a CRPF camp were shot dead, the police said in a statement.

The Kuki tribes claim the 10 men killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”, an allegation the police and other authorities have refuted strongly. The security forces have shared visuals of assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) which they say were brought by the militants. They have also shared visuals of a police SUV with numerous bullet holes.

Political leaders cutting across party lines have condemned the killing of women and children in Manipur. Most have said the latest incident was a terror attack considering it was not a skirmish between two communities in a riot-like situation, but a calculated hostage-taking operation with an intention to execute them.

“Deeply saddened by the tragic incident in Manipur. 6 innocent lives (3 women and 3 minors) from the Meitei community were kidnapped and killed by Kuki terrorists. Condemn terrorism! Demand severe punishment for culprits,” Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale said in a post on X.

The Mizoram government in a statement said, “… Deeply saddened by the recent turn of violent events in Manipur in which precious lives were lost. The government extends its deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones and those injured in the recent unrest… Request everyone to refrain from actions which can instigate communal incidents within Mizoram in connection with the recent Manipur conflict…”

Former Manipur Chief Minister and Congress leader O Ibobi Singh told reporters today MLAs are ready to quit en masse if necessary in the interest of the state. His comments came following an ultimatum given by the influential Meitei civil society group COCOMI to the state leaders to act on the Manipur crisis or step down.

“We have already mentioned that we MLAs will resign if it can solve the crisis. We are ready to quit in the interest of the state if the crisis can be solved with our resignation. But the onus of the situation lies with the state and the Centre; there is no law and order. There is a complete breakdown of constitutional systems. This is the government’s responsibility that they can’t ignore,” said Mr Ibobi.

Latest Round Of Violence Began Thursday

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.

Kuki groups have alleged Meitei insurgents tried to shoot at central forces for not letting them cross the sensitive area (or “buffer zone”), but missed and hit the farmer.

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

Imphal/Kolkata:

Five people were killed in fresh violence in Manipur’s Jiribam district on Saturday morning, police said.

One person was shot dead in his sleep while four others were killed in subsequent exchange of fire between armed men of two warring communities, a police officer said.

Militants entered the house of the person who lived alone in an isolated location around 5 km from the district headquarters and shot him dead in his sleep, he said.

After the killing, a heavy exchange of fire broke out between armed men of the warring communities in the hills around 7 km from the district headquarters, leading to the deaths of four armed persons, including three hills-based militants, the officer said.

Further details are awaited.

Earlier this week, fresh arson broke out in the district after suspected “village volunteers” burnt down an abandoned three-room house of a retired police officer at Jakuradhor in Borobekra police station said.

Tribal body Indigenous Tribes Advocacy Committee (Pherzawl and Jiribam) denied any involvement in the incident.

The district witnessed fresh violence despite representatives of the Meitei and Hmar communities reaching an agreement to restore normalcy and “prevent incidents of arson and firing” in a meeting held at a CRPF facility in adjoining Assam’s Cachar on August 1.

In the meeting moderated by the Jiribam district administration, Assam Rifles and CRPF personnel, and representatives of Hmar, Meitei, Thadou, Paite and Mizo communities of Jiribam district were also present.

The agreement was, however, denounced by several Hmar tribal bodies based outside Jiribam district saying they did not have any knowledge about it.

More than 200 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups since May last year.

Ethnically-diverse Jiribam, which was largely untouched by ethnic violence in Imphal Valley and adjoining hills, erupted in violence after a 59-year-old man belonging to one community was killed allegedly by militants of another community in June this year. Thousands had to leave their homes and relocate to relief camps due to incidents of arson by both sides. A CRPF jawan was also killed in an ambush by militants during patrolling by security forces in mid-July.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Imphal:
A Central Reserve Police Force soldier was killed in attacks by “suspected Kuki insurgents” on a joint patrol from multiple directions in Manipur’s Jiribam district today, the police said in a statement. The forces then launched a combing operation.

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