A Kuki-based civil society organisation has called shutdown in parts of Manipur’s Kangpokpi district after an arson attack on K Songlung (II) village in the Sadar Hills area on Monday, India Today NE reported.
The shutdown call was issued by the Committee on Tribal Unity after several houses and farmhouses were set on fire by suspected militants on Sunday afternoon, triggering tension in the Kuki-dominated hill district, PTI reported.
The extent of the damage has yet to be officially assessed. Security personnel, including the Assam Rifles, have been deployed in the area, the news agency reported.
The Zeliangrong United Front claimed responsibility for the attack, alleging that the houses and farmhouses were being used for illegal poppy cultivation, PTI reported.
The front is a militant outfit active in the state’s Tamenglong, Noney and Kangpokpi districts. The group claims to be fighting for the rights and land of the Zeliangrong Naga people.
Manipur has been under President’s Rule since February 2025, when Bharatiya Janata Party leader N Biren Singh resigned as the chief minister.
At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced in the state since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.
While efforts have been underway in recent days to restore an elected government in the state, Kuki militant groups and MLAs have said they will participate in the process only after getting a political commitment for a Union Territory in the Kuki-Zo-majority areas of the state.
After the arson attack, the Zeliangrong United Front stated that it had “intensified its decisive campaign against illegal poppy cultivation, narcotics trafficking and encroachment by illegal immigrants within the ancestral, customary and historical territory of the Zeliangrong Inpui Naga people”, PTI reported.
The armed outfit said that it had previously given “repeated public alerts and sufficient time for peaceful compliance”. It added that enforcement action was carried out at 12.15 pm during which farmhouses, farms and other essential materials used for illegal poppy cultivation were burnt, the news agency reported.
The Kuki civil society organisation Committee on Tribal Unity rejected the claim that the homes that were torched were used for illegal cultivation and condemned the incident.
The committee alleged that several Kuki-Zo villages along the fringes of Kangpokpi district, including Lhangjol, Loibol Kholen, Kharam Vaiphei and K Songlung (II), have faced repeated intimidation in recent months under the pretext of monitoring poppy cultivation, the India Today NE reported.
The organisation demanded that the state government apprehend those responsible within 24 hours, warning of “preemptive action” if no arrests were made.
Meanwhile, Congress Kuki leader Lamtinthang Haokip said in a social media post that while the rest of the country was celebrating India’s 77th Republic Day, “the tribal Kuki village, K Songlung, under Kangpokpi District has been turned into ashes by [Zeliangrong United Front (Kamson faction) and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah faction)]”.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah faction) is an insurgent group that has been fighting for a sovereign Naga homeland for decades.
“The failure of the BJP government in stopping the ethnic violence since May 3, 2023 has further the consequences,” Haokip said. “A sinister design of the current dispensation.”
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