Parents Shot Dead, Efforts On To Save Manipur Child With Bullet Injury

Four members of the Kuki tribes were killed in attacks by unidentified people in Manipur in the last 24 hours. Kuki organisations have alleged that Naga insurgents from NSCN(IM) and ZUF(K) were responsible for the attacks.

A woman was also reported missing following the attacks in two districts - Tamenglong and Noney.

The first attack happened at Tollen village in Tamenglong district, a Kuki civil group said. Seineh Singsit and his wife Lhingzangai were killed; their six-year-old son was injured. She died on the spot while her husband died during treatment at a hospital, sources said.

A surgery is scheduled today to remove the bullet from the child's body.

The Manipur chief minister's office in a statement expressed "deep anguish over the heinous killing of two innocent civilians" and "the loss of two more precious lives in a gun attack by unidentified armed miscreants".

"Such cowardly acts of violence against innocent civilians are unacceptable and have no place in our society," Chief Minister Y Khemchand Singh said.

In the second incident, unidentified gunmen ambushed a group of people who were carrying rice, killing two of them on the spot. The dead have been identified as Julie Gangte and Thangroel Gangte.

The third person, a woman, was reported missing.

The Kuki-Naga ethnic conflict that began in 1992 and lasted six years had taken the lives of over 1,000 people. The 2023 Kuki-Meitei violence claimed over 260 lives.

Six members of the Naga tribes were taken hostage from a village in Kangpokpi district on May 13 this year. Their bodies were recovered on June 10 near a Kuki settlement.

Before that, Kuki groups had said 14 members of their tribes were killed and several houses were burnt in clashes with the Nagas in February.