The 48 hours between Saturday and Monday plunged Manipur into a new crisis, involving rare violence among all four of the state’s major communities—Meiteis, Nagas, Kukis and Pangals—while members of a fifth community, Nepalis, were also trapped in the unrest.
Lhatoo did not identify the two communities but people on the ground confirmed the clash was between Meiteis and Pangals, prompting police to order a curfew in the district. Gunfights also broke out between armed Naga and Kuki groups in other parts of Kamjong that night, with the situation brought under control only after Assam Rifles personnel intervened. That evening, the police headquarters in Imphal rushed a new Border Security Force (BSF) team to Kamjong to assist the police and Assam Rifles in containing the volatile situation. Even as authorities in the state capital closely monitored developments in the district, violence was unfolding closer to Imphal. The incidents subsequently escalated and communities of Khangabok and Sangakpham got involved. The blast at Singjamei left three CRPF officers critically injured. They were rushed to Raj Medicity hospital, where the body of the Meitei man killed in the Thoubal violence was also being brought around the same time. But the worst was yet to come. The events of another violent incident, eight hours later, would make Raj Medicity the focal point of political activity, drawing leaders to the hospital as the state grappled with further escalation in violence. “It must have taken police days to consider and check intelligence reports to have a Kuki police officer lead a parade in Imphal. Do you remember a former Manipur judge (High Court Chief Justice Siddharth Mridul) once talking about his suspicion of an invisible hand behind the violence in Manipur?
It was in these 48 hours that for the first time, clashes broke out between the Meitei (Hindus) and Meitei Pangals (Muslims), leading to a death and the burning of houses, which prompted police to order a curfew. It was in these 48 hours that the Meitei-Kuki clashes resurfaced, after almost three months of no such violence between them, when three men were allegedly killed by Kuki militants. Describing the events, Manipur’s additional director general of police (ADG) Lhari Dorjee Lhatoo said, “At around 11:20pm, tension erupted between two communities following a stone-pelting incident by unidentified persons during a musical night at Khangabok Pali Bazar under Thoubal police station. At around 12:40am, one individual succumbed to his injuries; these were bullet injuries, at Raj Medicity, while several others were injured. Barely 20 minutes after stone-pelting broke out between Meiteis and Pangals, as security forces began anti-riot measures, the Manipur Police control room received another alert. At 11.41pm, a CRPF team came under an IED attack in Singjamei, around 20km from the site of the Thoubal clash, where another CRPF team and other forces were still trying to restore order. By 1:50am, violence in Thoubal was over, according to police records.
Because in Manipur’s history of communal and ethnic clashes, Meiteis (Hindus) and Pangals (Muslims) also have a history of communal clashes dating back to 1993 when over 100 people were killed, the deployment and curfew were necessary.
Just when things seemed to be improving, the resurgence of Meitei-Kuki violence after all these months was unexpected,” the officer said, adding that the surprises in Manipur seemed far from over.
