Manipur Home Minister tells the Assembly 306 are dead and 49 still missing

Manipur Home Minister Govindas Konthoujam told the Assembly on Thursday, 3 September, that 306 people have died and 49 remain missing in the ethnic violence that began on 3 May 2023. The cut-off for the count was 31 August 2026. He was answering a question from BJP MLA Sapam Ranjan Singh on the second day of the sitting.

The fighting started after a Tribal Solidarity March in the hill districts against a Meitei demand for Scheduled Tribe status. Meiteis are about 53 percent of the state and live mostly in the Imphal Valley. Naga and Kuki-Zo groups make up much of the 40 percent tribal share and live mostly in the hills. The two geographies hardened into separate security zones after the first weeks of arson and killing.

President’s rule was imposed on 13 February 2025 after Chief Minister N. Biren Singh resigned on 9 February. The 60-member Assembly, whose term runs to 2027, was suspended. The Centre lifted President’s rule on 4 February 2026, hours before a new BJP government under Y. Khemchand Singh took office. Konthoujam now speaks for that cabinet. The numbers he read out are the first official running total presented to the restored House.

He also told MLAs that a person is treated as missing, in the strict legal sense used for some records, only after seven years. That is why the 49 figure sits beside the 306 and is not folded into it. Families of the 49 have lived with that gap for up to three years.

The floor statement does not break the dead or the missing by community. Earlier independent tallies often did. The omission will be read differently in the valley and in the hills. It also does not list how many of the 306 died in 2023, 2024, 2025 or 2026. A conflict that the rest of India filed away as last year’s news is still adding names, even if the weekly rate is far below the first summer.

Khemchand Singh’s government has to govern a state that still has separated populations, restricted roads and parallel memories of the same dates. An Assembly that can ask for a number is a step on from a suspended House. A number that still includes 49 people with no grave is the measure of how little has been closed.

Thursday’s record is now the official baseline. Any later claim, from any side, will have to beat 306 dead and 49 missing as of 31 August, spoken on the floor by the Home Minister of the government that replaced President’s rule.