Two Kuki women shot dead in Tamenglong two days after four civilians were killed

Unidentified gunmen killed two Kuki women at Leisangphai village in Manipur's Tamenglong district around 3 p.m. on 15 September. District officials confirmed the attack. Farmhouses in the area were set on fire.

The dead were named as Phalneichong, also called Chonga Sitlhou, a widow in her late seventies who was collecting firewood, and Kimjalhing, also called Kimneo or Kimboi Singson, a nursing graduate in her late twenties who had come home to help her parents on the farm. Age figures in first reports ranged from 76 to 79 for Sitlhou and from 28 to 30 for Singson. Both women were from the same village. Their bodies were found in the field and brought in by villagers.

The shooting came two days after four Kuki civilians, including a married couple, were killed on 13 September at Tollen in Tamenglong and Longpi in neighbouring Noney, another Naga-majority district. Kuki organisations say six Kuki villagers have been killed in three days.

Who is being blamed

Kuki Inpi Manipur, the community's apex body, said the 15 September attack was unprovoked and named the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah and the Zeliangrong United Front (Kamson faction) as the groups responsible. Saikul MLA Kimneo Hangshing of the Kuki People's Alliance called the killings cold-blooded and said that if investigation establishes the alleged role of NSCN-IM and a proxy ZUF-K unit, the assault would be a grave crime against civilians. Those attributions have not been independently confirmed. Police have not issued a charge sheet naming a group.

The Kuki-Zo Council told affiliated organisations that no Kuki-Zo person killed by Naga armed groups should be buried until further notice. Remains are to be held in cold storage. The council asked the state and the Centre to protect civilians and to act against armed groups that attack them.

A second front inside a longer war

Ethnic violence between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities began on 3 May 2023. On 3 September this year Home Minister Govindas Konthoujam told the Manipur Assembly that 306 people had been killed and 49 were still missing from that date through 31 August 2026. President's rule was lifted in February when Y. Khemchand Singh formed a BJP government.

A separate Naga-Kuki conflict opened in February 2026. Local counts put at least 40 dead on both sides this year on that track. Tamenglong and Noney sit on the western hill side of the state, away from the Imphal valley where the 2023 clashes were densest. The new killings show the map of risk has widened into Naga-majority blocks where Kuki hamlets are small and isolated.

Two CoBRA battalions of the Central Reserve Police Force were recently sent to Manipur to contain armed violence. The 15 September attack happened in a field, not on a highway checkpoint. That is the terrain those units are trained for. It is also terrain where a patrol cannot sit on every jhum plot.

What follows the freeze on burials

A refusal to bury is a political act as much as a funeral custom. It keeps the bodies in the public file and raises the cost of a quiet local settlement. It also stores remains in a state where electricity and cold-chain capacity are uneven. The council has not set a date on which the freeze lifts.

The immediate questions for Imphal and New Delhi are narrower. Who fired at Leisangphai. Whether the same unit moved between Tollen, Longpi and Leisangphai in 48 hours. And whether the existing deployment can cover isolated fields in Tamenglong without turning every farm visit into a military escort. Those answers are not in the first official notes from Tuesday afternoon.