Houses set on fire in Kultuh village in Manipur’s Kuki-dominated Kamjong district. (Photo: X/@Vantagemonitor)
New Delhi/Imphal: Tensions in Manipur escalated sharply on Thursday, after armed assailants stormed Kultuh village in the Kuki-dominated Kamjong district before dawn, killing two villagers and setting several houses, including a church, on fire. The attack came barely a day after security forces recovered the bodies of six Naga men who had been held hostage since mid-May.
According to police, the attackers – described as carrying sophisticated weapons – entered Kultuh village around 4.30am and opened fire on residents. The two men killed were identified by the Eastern Kuki Chiefs’ Association as Letminlun Haokip, head deacon of the Kultuh church, and Lunminthang Haokip, the village’s youth chairman. Two other villagers were injured and taken to hospital for treatment. Seven structures, including the church, were reportedly burned.
#BREAKING
— Vantage Monitor (@Vantagemonitor) June 11, 2026
Two people reportedly killed after NSCN-IM cadres attacked a Kuki village in Kultuk, Kamjong district.
The timing raises difficult questions.
This comes amid fresh outrage over the recovery of six bodies linked to the Naga hostage crisis.
Too early to draw… pic.twitter.com/48hle29GP3
The Eastern Kuki Chiefs’ Association alleged that the attack was carried out by militants belonging to the NSCN (Eastern Flank) and the Shanni National Army, and that church leaders were deliberately targeted. The Naga Village Guard, Eastern Command (NVG-EC) – an armed group active in the Naga-inhabited hill districts of Ukhrul and Kamjong – denied involvement, instead attributing the violence to an internal dispute between rival Kuki factions operating near the India-Myanmar border. The NVG-EC is distinct from the Nagaland Village Guards, a legally constituted state auxiliary force run by the Nagaland government, and has previously been linked to incidents of violence in the region.
In response to the attack, security forces launched an operation in the Horei Kaphung hills of Ukhrul district based on intelligence inputs. Around a dozen armed individuals were reportedly spotted during the operation; while several escaped, eight people were detained.
The Kultuh killings followed a day after the recovery of six bodies, believed to be those of Naga men abducted on May 13 from Leilon Vaiphei village in Kangpokpi district. The bodies were recovered after a nearly 24-hour search operation involving around 450 personnel from the Manipur Police, the Central Reserve Police Force and the Assam Rifles, supported by sniffer dogs and forensic teams. The remains were taken to the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal for post-mortem examination, where hundreds of people gathered outside the mortuary. Police used tear gas to disperse sections of the crowd after stone-pelting broke out.
The recovery also triggered protests in Senapati district, where demonstrators vandalized property outside the office of the Naga People’s Front, while a 24-hour shutdown called by the United Naga Council from 6am on Thursday disrupted normal life across several Naga-majority areas. The council said it would not accept the bodies until its demands were met, which include the revocation of the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement with Kuki militant groups, the designation of the Kuki National Front – President Group as a terrorist organization, and the removal of the deputy chief minister, Nemcha Kipgen, from office.
The Manipur chief minister, Y Khemchand Singh, said his government would not remain a “mute spectator” to the killings and promised stringent action against those responsible.
The six Naga men were among 20 community members abducted on May 13. On the same day, 28 Kuki civilians were taken captive following the killing of three church leaders from the Thadou community in Kangpokpi district. Most hostages on both sides were released over the following weeks through community mediation; the remaining 14 Kukis were freed on June 9, while the six Nagas remained missing until their bodies were found this week.
The latest violence highlights how a separate Naga-Kuki fault line has opened up alongside Manipur’s broader Meitei-Kuki conflict, which has raged since May 2023, claiming more than 260 lives and displacing tens of thousands. Unlike the Meitei–Kuki violence, Nagas had largely remained outside that conflict until the abductions and killings of recent weeks pulled the community in. The state has remained under President’s rule since February 2025.
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