How ambush of church leaders on a forested road escalated Naga-Kuki conflict across Manipur hills

On May 4, three months after the first clashes broke out between Kukis and Nagas in Manipur, church leaders from both communities met in Nagaland to find a way to end hostilities.

At the meeting in Kohima was Reverend Vumthang Sitlhou, a Baptist pastor from Kangpopki district held in deep regard by both communities.

Vevo Phesao, the vice president of the Nagaland Joint Christian Forum that had organised the meeting, recalled that Sitlhou, who represented the Kukis, spoke of the bonds of Christianity and education between the Tangkhul Naga tribe and Kukis.

Sitlhou’s son, Haominlun, told Scroll that the leaders proposed “a ceasefire” of two months. Phesao said the meeting ended on a hopeful note, but no official agreement was signed.

Haominlun, however, said: “Even on the day of the Kohima meeting, there were firings in the hills.”

Nine days later, Sitlhou was dead – shot by armed men in his vehicle while he was returning from a meeting of church leaders. Two church leaders who had attended the Kohima meeting and were travelling with him – Reverend Kaigoulun Lhouvum and Pastor Paogoulen Sitlhou – were also killed in the ambush.

Sitlhou’s family members said they suspect this was a “targeted killing”, as he had been working towards reconciliation. A leading Kuki organisation blamed a Naga militant group for the ambush while the Nagas blamed Kuki armed groups for the attack.

The killing of the three religious leaders sparked a cycle of grisly reprisals, retaliatory abductions and killings. It also expanded the area of conflict, from Ukhrul and Kamjong districts, where violence broke out in February, to the Kuki-majority district of Kangpokpi.

This is the second major conflict to have erupted in Manipur in the last three years. In 2023, fierce clashes between Kukis, who live in the hills, and Meiteis, who live in the Imphal Valley, left 260 dead, thousands displaced and led to a ‘partition’ of the state on ethnic lines.

At least 26 people have died so far in the Naga-Kuki clashes that broke out in February, with the highest casualties in Kangpokpi. The district is also under a crushing “economic blockade”, surrounded as it is by Naga-majority districts of Senapati and Ukhrul to the north and the Imphal Valley to the south.

According to Kuki leaders, the ambush of the church leaders on a forested road, called the Tiger-German road, which the Kukis were building, was the first salvo in choking off the district. Across the state, roads and highways have been drawn into the conflict, as both communities enforce blockades and armed groups take aim at targets.

The conflict spreads

Both Kuki and Naga leaders told Scroll that the killing of the pastors was a tipping point in the violence, making even church leaders reluctant to advocate for peace.

“Nobody will come and talk peace now as the environment is not there anymore,” a senior Tangkhul Naga church leader from Ukhrul told Scroll.

A Kuki leader from Kangpopki district told Scroll that the ambush of the pastors was aimed at sabotaging Sithlou’s attempts at peace and reconciliation. “But it was also aimed at exaggerating and creating divisions between Kukis and Thadous, so that they could spread the word that Nagas were not to blame.”

Sithlou belonged to the Thadou tribe. A small section claims it is a community distinct and separate from the Kukis, while the majority say they are Kukis.

The apex body of the Kuki tribes, Kuki Inpi Manipur, accused the largest Naga insurgent group, National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), of having a hand in the ambush. But it specifically blamed an armed Naga group, the Zeliangrong United Front (Kamson faction), for the attack.

The Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei tribes are collectively referred to as Zeliangrong Nagas.

Initially, the conflict was limited to Ukhrul, where the Tangkhul Nagas are the dominant tribe.

“This means the fight was mainly between the Tangkhul Nagas and Kukis,” said an official of a central security force who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “After the church leaders’ killing, Zeliangrong Nagas of Senapati district have also become involved.”

A wedding and an abduction

The violence spread across Kangpokpi within hours of the pastors’ death.

Gracy Thiumai, from the picturesque Naga village of Konsakhul, had just celebrated the wedding of her brother.

That day, two of her other brothers, 45-year-old Manu Thiumai and 38-year-old Dilip Thiumai, left the village after lunch with 16 other wedding guests for the foothills of Laimakhong.

But just one kilometre downhill, they were stopped by women at Leilon Vaiphei, a Kuki village, and held hostage.

The villagers at Leilon Vaiphei told Scroll that the news of the pastors’ killings had stirred everyone up.

They said they “aggressively reacted” by abducting around 18-20 Nagas.

K Lhouvum, a Kuki village chief of Laimakhong area said, “The villagers were furious. When religious leaders are killed and ambushed mercilessly, no community will keep quiet.”

The abduction led to Kukis being taken hostage by Nagas in other villages in Kangpopki the same day.

Two days later, on May 15, 14 Naga hostages, including women and children, were released. But the six men, including Gracy’s brothers, were taken away by armed Kuki men, said Kuki and Naga villagers.

Among the six were two Naga pastors – Gracy’s brother Manu, and 28-year-old Kenpibou Chawang, who had a following among Kukis too.

Their bodies were recovered 27 days later, allegedly mutilated.

The United Naga Council, the apex body of the Nagas, blamed the armed group, Kuki National Front (Presidential), for the abduction and killings.

Phaisu Thiumai, Gracy’s brother who got married the day before the abductions, said the Kukis used the pastors’ killings, which happened 20 km away from Konsakhul, as a pretext to kill. “There is no connection at all with us. We did not even hear about the killings till before the abduction,” he said.

Days after the recovery of the bodies, a leading Kuki-Zo group admitted that the killings of the six Naga civilians were a “great mistake”.

Twenty-six-year-old Gracy, who now guards the village, accused the security forces and the government of inaction. “If the government had started rescue as soon as they heard about the abduction, they would have been alive,” she said.

She alleged that the Indian Army’s division posted in Laimakhong did not do enough to search for the hostages. “We are heartbroken. Who would have believed that they would cut them in such an inhumane way?”

The Tiger-German road

The church leaders were ambushed on a forested hilly road, which is a bone of contention between Kuki groups and the Nagas.

Called the Tiger-German road, it links Churachandpur to Kangpokpi – the two main habitations of the Kuki-Zos – without passing through the Imphal Valley.

The 2023 violence has divided Manipur into exclusive ethnic zones, with Kuki-Zos unable to enter the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley and Meiteis unwelcome in the hilly districts of Churachandpur and Kangpokpi.

Since 2023, Kuki groups had organised construction work on the Tiger-German road, allegedly without the approval of government authorities. In December, the National Green Tribunal ordered an immediate halt to the road cutting through forested and hilly terrain citing lack of statutory approvals or environmental clearance after a Meitei civil society group approached the tribunal.

The 80-km road is named after the monikers of two Kuki militants on whose initiative village paths in the hill districts were linked to form the motorable road. Some sections of the road pass through Zeliangrong Naga villages, including Konsakhul.

A Kuki leader told Scroll that Nagas did not have objection to the road earlier. “We had a mutual agreement that they can collect taxes on the portion of the road that passes through their lands,” he said.

But a year ago, Nagas began opposing the work on the unpaved sections of the road.

Siliang Bou, a senior leader of Makhan village in Kangpokpi district, told Scroll that Nagas were angered when some Kuki-Zos threatened residents of the Naga villages. “We allowed them to use our village road because that was their only lifeline after they were cut off from the Imphal Valley,” he said. “But if they come with guns and threaten us, we can’t allow it anymore.”

In July last year, the Foothills Naga Co-ordinating Committee, imposed a blockade in the Laimakhong area, which skirted the Tiger-German road, due to the alleged “growing threats” to the Naga ancestral lands. They claimed that the proposed road was “planned without the consent of the local Naga population, and is seen as an infringement on traditional Naga land ownership”.

The Kuki leader quoted above claimed that the pastor attack was aimed at “cutting off Kangpokpi from Churachandpur and therefore isolate Kangpokpi totally”.

Since May 13, the Kukis have not taken the road, said J Haokip of Kuki Inpi, the apex body of the Kukis.

“As the Tiger German road is closed, Kangpokpi is hugely debilitated,” he said. “People have been cut off from district headquarters, markets, medical facilities and food supply.”

The hills under siege

The cycle of revenge killings and abductions have left large parts of Manipur hills blockaded, from villages to entire districts.

Manipur has a history of such blockades enforced by communities in conflict.

In 2017, United Naga Council, the apex Naga body, imposed a 139-day economic blockade on two key highways to protest the decision to create seven new districts, carved out of older Naga-dominated districts in the hills. The primary contention was over the creation of the Kangpokpi district, where Kukis are the dominant group.

Nine years later, as Nagas and Kukis face off again, the battle over control over roads and highways has resumed.

The movement of people and goods across ethnic enclaves has sharply gone down, as Nagas fear to take highways that pass through Kuki territories and vice versa.

The first shutdown was announced by the Kukis in Kangpopki after the killing of the three church leaders on May 13.

The discovery of the bodies of the Naga civilians on June 11 led to more aggressive blockades of Kuki areas.

Given its geography – it is sandwiched between Naga-dominant districts in the north and Meitei majority Imphal Valley in the south – Kangpopki is one of the worst affected.

When Scroll travelled to Kangpopki from Imphal Valley, taking the National Highway 2, Naga volunteers, armed with sticks, checked each vehicle.

They verified our identity and asked whether we were carrying any food and essential commodities in the car.

With Naga volunteers stopping essential items from entering Kangpopki, the prices of food and gas have skyrocketed.

K Lhouvum, the headman of Hengjang Kuki village in the Laimakhong area, said due to the disruption of supply routes, prices of onion, potatoes and cooking fuel have increased manifold.

“We have been forced to survive on wild and locally available produce,” he said.

Similarly, in Ukhrul and Kamjong districts, the Tangkhul Nagas have not been able to travel through a stretch of about 10 km of the Imphal-Ukhrul National Highway because of two major blockades.

While trucks and other supply vehicles move with security escorts, Naga civilians have stopped taking this road after two Naga men were killed in April.

“It isn’t safe,” said a journalist from the Naga community. “Security forces cannot guarantee civilian safety. They just won’t admit it.”

The residents of Senapati, a Naga district, can no longer go to Imphal via Kangpopki. They have to take a longer detour via Kohima and Ukhrul.

Many Naga villages in Kangpopki like Konsakhul have also been cut off from the world.

A Liangmai Naga resident of a village along the Imphal-Tamenglong road said that both communities living nearby were trapped. “No one can step out from either Naga and Kuki villages on this road because of the fear of the Naga army and the Kuki army,” she said, referring to armed groups of both communities active in the nearby hills. “The militants can easily intercept anyone on the road if they just cross over the hills. It’s scary.”

Around 8-10 Liangmai Naga villages lie along the road, which connects Kamjong district near the Myanmar border to Kangpopki and Churachandpur via the Tiger-German road. The Naga villages, the woman claimed, lie on the exact route that the “Kukis need for their trade and passage of militants”. “That’s why we are a huge hindrance for them,” she said.

Phaisu Thuimai, whose wedding ended in tragedy for his family, too, is stuck in a relief camp in Makhan village in the foothills of Laimakhong. On May 13, when his brothers were abducted, he had gone to Imphal airport to drop a guest. He was not able to return home.

Back in the village, his sister Gracy said, very few people have been able to leave the village since stepping out could mean facing gunfire from nearby Kuki villages or worse.

As the blockades continue, desperation is growing.

On July 2, a group of 500-600 Kukis tried to break the Laimakhong buffer zone to protest the economic blockade of Kangpokpi. They were stopped by the Army officials.

“Geography has been turned into a weapon,” an Army official told Scroll.