Taphou Kuki firing: Woman harvesting paddy shot dead on Manipur's NH-2

A Kuki woman harvesting paddy was shot dead on Thursday, November 12, when gunfire broke out near Taphou Kuki village on the boundary of Manipur's Kangpokpi and Senapati districts. At least one other person was wounded.

Officials quoted by PTI said the firing began at around 11 am between rival armed groups. It was centred on an area between Taphou Kuki in Kangpokpi district and Kailengjang in neighbouring Senapati district.

This is the same village that lost two young men last month, and the firing comes while a Kuki body is still protesting at the Kangpokpi district headquarters over that case.

What happened in the fields

The Assam Tribune, citing a police report, said villagers were harvesting paddy when the shooting began. Farmers left their fields and ran for cover. The paper named the woman as Kimneineng Chongloi, wife of Thanggou Chongloi of Taphou village, and said she died on the spot from bullet wounds.

In the PTI report carried by the Hindustan Times, officials named her as Nengboi Chongloi. They said she was found lying in the field with a sickle still in her hand, and that locals and security forces recovered her body. The two names may refer to the same person, a formal name and a familiar one, but this has not been officially clarified.

The reports also differ on how many people were wounded. PTI said one man was hurt and taken to a private hospital in Kangpokpi district. The police report cited by the Assam Tribune named two injured villagers, Sehngam Chongloi, also known as David, and Lamkhochon Chongloi, both from Taphou.

India Today NE said commuters had been told to avoid non-essential travel on National Highway 2 (NH-2), which runs past the village. The Assam Tribune reported that firing was still going on in the area some time after the first shots. Police had not publicly named the groups involved by Thursday afternoon.

Why Taphou Kuki matters

Taphou Kuki sits along NH-2, the Imphal-Dimapur road that carries much of the valley's fuel and food. The village is on a sensitive stretch where Kuki and Naga villages are close together.

Two youths from the village, Paoginlal Hangsing and Tinginlun Chongloi, both 20, went missing on October 28. The Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) called a shutdown while they were missing. Their bodies were recovered on November 1 in Senapati district, east of NH-2 along SP Road.

On November 9, Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh visited Taphou Kuki to meet the families and said the case would go to the NIA. Manipur Police's ADGP (Law and Order), Lhari Dorjee Lhatoo, said on Tuesday that the transfer proposal was at an advanced stage and orders were awaited.

CoTU paused its shutdown on November 8 but warned it could resume. It is now holding a sit-in at the Kangpokpi district headquarters over what it calls the government's "unsatisfactory response" to its demands. One central demand is that Taphou Kuki be placed under Kangpokpi district police instead of the Senapati police station. The reasoning is that the village belongs to Kangpokpi, while the area where the bodies were found falls under Senapati police.

A pattern on the Kangpokpi-Senapati belt

Thursday's killing is the latest in a run of violence along this stretch. On Tuesday, a woman in Kangpokpi's Bazaghari village lost her leg to a suspected landmine while grazing cattle.

Relations between Naga and Kuki communities in this area have been tense since early this year. That rivalry, which we traced in our explainer on the Litan clash, has run alongside Manipur's wider Meitei-Kuki conflict. The bodies of six Naga men killed in Kangpokpi are due to be buried on November 16 after five months in a mortuary.

For farming families on both sides of the district line, the November harvest means long days in open fields close to the highway. Thursday showed how exposed they are.

NEInsider will update this story when police confirm the victim's name, the number of injured and the groups involved.