Five killed in Manipur as Kuki-Naga violence flares in two districts
Police say three men died in a gunfight in Noney and two more were found dead in Kangpokpi, where NDTV reported protests.
Five men have been killed in two separate incidents in India's north-eastern state of Manipur, police said on November 1, according to a Reuters report carried by The Straits Times. All five were from the Kuki tribal community, the report said.
NDTV also reported the five deaths, with protests in Kangpokpi district after two of the bodies were found there.
Those two men had gone missing earlier in the week. A police statement said their bodies were recovered on the morning of November 1 after security personnel launched a search operation. NDTV reported that both were 20 years old and that their disappearance had prompted the Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) to call a shutdown across the district.
The other three died on October 31 in Noney district. Police described an exchange of gunfire between "unidentified armed miscreants", while NDTV's report said the three were shot.
A top Kuki tribal body blamed Naga separatist outfits for the killings and called them a "direct unprovoked assault... in their homeland", The Straits Times reported.
The deaths came amid mass protests in the state capital, Imphal, and other areas. Hundreds of thousands of people have attended the demonstrations, which demand the abrogation of a ceasefire arrangement between Kuki armed groups and the Indian state.
The predominantly Christian Kuki and Naga tribes have a long history of conflict over competing claims to ethnic homelands in the remote state. According to the report, the latest fighting erupted after a Naga man was allegedly assaulted by men from the Kuki community in February 2026. The killing of three Kuki pastors in May, allegedly by Naga armed groups, then set off retaliatory abductions and killings by both sides.
The Kuki community is also in a separate conflict with the mainly Hindu Meitei community, which began in May 2023 over economic benefits and job quotas. That conflict has claimed more than 300 lives, and more than 60,000 displaced people are still living in temporary shelters.
Sources: NDTV, 5 Killed In Manipur: Protests In Kangpokpi As 2 Bodies Found, 3 Shot In Noney; The Straits Times, Five killed in fresh ethnic violence in India’s Manipur state.
