PR Band Aid Failed to Protect Meitei From Kuki Militants

The gunfire that emanated from Khamenlok on the night of December 9, 2025—on the eve of President Droupadi Murmu’s maiden visit to Manipur—was not merely an act of provocation. Nor was the December 16 attack on Meitei settlements in Torbung and Phougakchao Ikhai, nor the January 5 bomb blasts in Saiton-Nganukon, mere indications of isolated security lapses. 

These incidents, occurring under the direct central administration of President's Rule, expose a profound and hidden agenda: despite nearly a year of PR governance and the deployment of tens of thousands of central forces, armed Kuki militants continue to target Meitei civilians with impunity, choosing their moments and methods to maximise fear and disruption.

President's Rule in Manipur has proven to be nothing more than a superficial band-aid—plastered over a deep, festering wound that shows no sign of healing. Far from delivering the promised cure, it merely manages optics and maintains a fragile status quo, allowing the underlying infection of violence to spread unchecked. 

Delhi's direct control through President's Rule was intended to deliver uncompromising, decisive action against those relentlessly targeting innocent civilians—swiftly neutralising militant networks, preempting attacks, and ensuring that no armed group could strike innocent villagers with impunity.

Instead, it has effectively frozen the conflict in a dangerous imbalance, where Kuki armed elements on one side continue to exert pressure through sustained violence, intimidation, and terror, while the disarmed Meitei communities are left exposed and vulnerable to repeated attacks. What was sold as a strong remedy has become a prolonged paralysis, prolonging suffering rather than ending it.

When President's Rule was imposed on February 13, 2025, following the resignation of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh amid escalating ethnic tensions, it was heralded as a decisive intervention—a reset button for law and order, promising impartial security and a path to reconciliation. 

Yet, as 2026 began, the reality on the ground tells a different story. Meitei villages along the fragile valley-hill fringes remain vulnerable outposts, where returnees from relief camps face not welcome, but gunfire, bombs, and intimidation. The central forces, meant to enforce peace, often appear as spectators or responders after the fact, unable to prevent attacks or dismantle the militant networks operating from the hills.

Consider the sequence of events, a chilling chronology that highlights the erosion of trust. The Khamenlok firing on December 9 came at a symbolically charged moment—just hours before President Murmu's arrival for her first visit since the violence erupted. Kuki militants unleashed rounds from the hills into Meitei areas in Imphal East, under Sagolmang Police Station. 

Security was already heightened for the presidential visit, yet the shots rang out unchecked initially. This was no random outburst; it was a bold assertion of control, timed to embarrass the central authority and signal that even under heightened vigilance, militants could act freely. Residents fled in panic, and while forces later tightened deployments, the message was clear: provocation works when one side is disarmed and the other is not.

A week later, on December 16, the assault escalated dramatically in Torbung and Phougakchao Ikhai, Bishnupur district—areas bordering Churachandpur. Just a day earlier, 389 displaced Meiteis had resettled in these villages under government rehabilitation promises, ending years in relief camps. They returned seeking normalcy, only to be greeted by heavy gunfire and multiple bomb explosions around 8:30 pm. 

Kuki militants fired indiscriminately from the hills, targeting civilian homes. Three massive craters—each three feet deep—were left by the blasts; bullets perforated tin roofs and walls, some embedding inside houses. One bomb exploded perilously close to a security forces post. Panic swept the area, undoing the fragile hope of return. Security forces retaliated, registered an FIR against "Kuki armed groups," and recovered unexploded devices from the Churachandpur side days later, including 16 IEDs in nearby areas.

Then, as if to mock the new year, multiple IED blasts rocked Saiton-Nganukon in Bishnupur on the morning of January 5. The explosions targeted an abandoned house belonging to 70-year-old Salam Mani Singh, vacant since the 2023 violence with its owner still in a relief camp, at Ngaukon Ward Nos. 7/8 under Phougakchao Police Station, an area patrolled by CRPF. 

The first blasts between 5:40 and 5:55 am jolted residents awake; a third followed around 8:30 am, with another nearby soon after at approximately 8:46 am, about 200 metres away. Tragically, two innocent Meitei villagers were injured in the subsequent blast. 

Soibam Sanatomba Singh (around 52 years old) from Saiton Awang Leikai and Nongthombam Indubala Devi (37), wife of the late N. Bishworjit Singh, from Saiton Heiyaikon Maning Leikai  sustained splinter injuries, primarily to their right legs, and were immediately rushed to Hospital for treatment. 

Kuki militants operate with brazen confidence, utterly unafraid of the authority imposed by President's Rule in Manipur. Barely two weeks after its imposition on February 13, 2025—and just one day after Meitei village defence forces surrendered their arms in a gesture of good faith—armed militants struck without hesitation. 

On February 28, they opened fire from the hills on devotees peacefully performing the sacred Nongma Panba ritual at Kongba Maru Laipham in Imphal East. Four cadres of the Kuki National Front (P) were eventually arrested and confessed to the attack, yet the incident sent an unmistakable signal: disarmament of one community only emboldens the other.

The audacity continued unchecked in mid-2025, Meitei farmers became prime targets as Kuki militants ambushed those daring to till their ancestral fields, with violent assaults in Sadu Lampak, Leitanpokpi, and Phubala leaving elderly cultivators wounded by gunfire and slingshot attacks. 

Then, on December 10, prolonged bursts of automatic fire echoed near Nungshum Khul in Imphal East, widely believed to originate from militant positions linked to lucrative poppy cultivation in the hills. 

These sustained provocations have deepened fear among valley residents, who find themselves unable to move or work freely under the shadow of such intimidation. Far from instilling deterrence, President's Rule has presided over a battlefield where Kuki armed groups act with impunity, exposing the hollow nature of central control.

Repeated attacks by armed Kuki militants on Meitei villagers—striking whenever and wherever they choose—are no longer mere incidents of unrest; they reveal a pattern of deliberate terrorism designed to intimidate, displace, and dominate. Whether it is gunfire disrupting sacred rituals, ambushes on farmers tilling ancestral fields, or meticulously timed bomb blasts targeting resettled homes and abandoned structures, the intent is very clear. 

To keep Meitei communities in perpetual fear and prevent any return to normalcy. Such calculated aggression demands far more than routine police responses—it calls for special investigations, independent probes, and genuine accountability to identify and dismantle the networks enabling these acts.

The question now hangs heavily over the central administration: How will President's Rule tackle these repeated, systematic attacks—not with extensions and statements, but with decisive, impartial action that disarms aggressors, restores equal security, and ends the cycle of terror once and for all?