On the night of 17-18 October 2026, suspected militants attacked Chassad village in Kamjong district. One Kuki civilian, Seikhohao Haokip, was killed and four others injured in firing earlier that day, at least 15 Kuki houses were then torched, forcing residents to flee into forests and an Army camp. A separate attack nearby injured three Tangkhul Naga civilians. Deputy Chief Minister Nemcha Kipgen called the house-burning “an intolerable crime,” while police deployed a joint column of Assam Rifles, BSF and local forces. Details remain incomplete amid personnel shortages near the Myanmar border.
This is not an isolated flare-up. It follows earlier October violence in the same area that left multiple dead (including a Kuki woman) and houses of both Kuki and Naga communities burned, with armed groups exchanging fire and allegations flying in both directions. The ethnic conflict that began in May 2023 between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities has never been resolved, it has merely mutated, now drawing in Naga groups and militants operating near the porous border. Thousands remain displaced, weapons are still in circulation, and normal life has not returned across large parts of the hills and valley.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has cycled through responses security deployments, buffer zones, President’s Rule from February 2025 to early 2026, and now a BJP-led elected government under Yumnam Khemchand Singh with Kuki and Naga deputy CMs yet the killing and arson continue. Meetings, assurances of “all possible assistance,” and routine condemnations have not produced a political settlement, disarmament, or accountability that ends the cycle. Three-and-a-half years on, civilians are still dying and homes are still being burned while the Centre projects incremental calm that events on the ground repeatedly puncture.
The pattern is clear, tactical force deployments without a credible, inclusive political process leave armed groups free to settle scores. Until the Centre treats Manipur as a sustained national priority rather than a peripheral law-and-order problem, villages like Chassad will keep burning.
