Moreh: A little after noon on 17 January, the fire brigade department of Myanmar’s Tamu town started receiving frantic calls for help from the residents of Moreh, a settlement in Manipur on the Indian side widely known for being a flourishing, yet largely informal, cross-border trade outpost between the two countries.
With three schools, an equal number of shops, one Christian assembly hall, and at least 17 houses ablaze, the 10-odd members of the Manipur fire brigade stationed in the town were struggling to douse the flames using the four engines at their disposal. The Menal river, located four km away, was the nearest water refilling point.
Around 3 pm, three fire engines rumbled in from the other side of the border, adding a new dimension to the Manipur ethnic conflict, which erupted in May last year.
“I want to say this categorically, had the fire engines from Myanmar not come to our rescue, over 50 houses would have been gutted as the flames would have spread,” said Lily, who said her husband is a soldier of the Indian Army. ThePrint reached Moreh — located nearly 110 km from Imphal — on the morning of 20 January.
Manipur fire department officials posted in the town corroborated Lily’s version. “Three fire engines came from Myanmar around 3 pm. They returned after some time. It took us two days to douse the fire,” said one of the fire officials, requesting anonymity.
Former IPS Kuldiep Singh, security advisor to Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, and chairman of the unified command, said a probe has been ordered into these claims. Eight months into the Manipur crisis, Moreh, situated in Tengnoupal district bordering Myanmar, has emerged as the epicentre of a fresh bout of tension that has gripped the state.
CCTV footage from that day appears to match allegations levelled by local residents that Assam Rifles personnel looked on as men in uniform, alleged to be Manipur Police commandos, entered localities in Moreh on 17 January and engaged in acts of arson.
ThePrint reached Manipur Police (DGP Manipur, SP Tengnoupal) and Assam Rifles (spokesperson) for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Sources in the Assam Rifles, however, rejected allegations that the force did not act to prevent arson, adding that “fire engines of the Assam Rifles also helped douse the incidents of fire”.
Also Read: ‘Hard to see countrymen fight’ — Assam Rifles, Army soldiers in Manipur on family & ethnic strife
‘Police commandos set houses, school on fire’
When ThePrint reached Moreh on the morning of 20 January, it found the border town, sliced by the strategically important Asian Highway 1, overrun by security personnel drawn from the Assam Rifles, Border Security Force (BSF) and state police. However, it is the Manipur Police commandos, also deployed in the area where Kukis presently outnumber all other ethnicities, who are in the cross hairs of local residents.
The Kuki, Nepali, Tamil and Bihari residents of the town allege that the commandos of the Manipur Police carried out the acts of arson after entering their houses between 12 pm and 3.30 pm on 17 January, hours after the killings of Wangkhem Somorjit, an India Reserve Battalion (IRB) commando attached to Manipur Rifles, and havildar Takhellambam Saileshwor by suspected Kuki militants who attacked multiple security posts in the town.
ThePrint, upon reaching Moreh, found several houses in two localities, Canan Veng and Phaicham Veng, reduced to ashes. Three private schools, namely Bethsaida Academy, Mount Moreh and Dr Colvin Academy, were also completely gutted along with the Moreh Christian Assembly Hall premises.
CCTVs installed by the local Hill Tribe Council in the area captured men in uniform — alleged to be Manipur Police commandos and Meitei radical outfit Arambai Tenggol by the local residents — opening fire in the lanes of Phaicham Veng. Timestamps displayed in the CCTV footage from 17 January appear to align with local residents’ version that the commandos entered and fired gunshots in the area around 1 PM.
“Armoured vehicles of the Assam Rifles stood by as Manipur Police commandos set the school and adjoining houses on fire. I am in college now but I have studied in this school as well. When we tried to stop them, they threatened to shoot us. We could not save our school, our homes,” said Lhinghoithem Baite, a resident of Canan Veng.
Nothing remains of the three schools apart from heaps of ash, charred desks and benches, piles of twisted metal and tin sheets. While Mount Moreh, established in 1995, had nearly 800 students enrolled in pre-primary classes to grade X, Bethsaida Academy had 230.
“I have filed a complaint with the police who have not yet lodged an FIR in the case. I have submitted the CCTV footage along with videos shot by locals from their balconies and rooftops of the commandos indulging in acts of arson,” said Tongkhoha Zou, the principal of Bathsaide Academy.
Thangboi Vaiphei, whose house adjoining the prayer hall was also torched, said the police has not carried out any investigation so far despite complaints.
A man of Nepali origin whose house shares a boundary with Bathsaide Academy suffered burn injuries on his left hand and neck as the blaze threatened to engulf his two-story wooden structure. “I was resting on the balcony with my wife and children when the commandos fired at us. We rushed inside and then the fire prompted us to run out to save our lives,” he said, requesting anonymity.
Moreh Tamil Sangam general secretary K.P.S. Mani said while the fight is primarily between the Meteis and the Kukis, Tamils, who number around 2,500 in the town, and other communities such as Nepalis, Gorkhas and Bengalis have also been affected.
“We were not specifically targeted on the 17th but no community was untouched. We are encountering such a situation after having lived here for the last 55 years,” Mani said, pointing to the long history of Moreh’s association with Tamils, many of whom settled in the town — its population pegged at 16,847 in the 2011 census — after being evicted by the Burmese military junta in the 1960s.
The accounts of locals such as Mani had one common refrain: the commandos were “specifically looking for Kuki men in the houses”.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Manipur Rifles personnel, however, claimed they fired in self defence after “Kuki village volunteers rained bullets on us”, while an Assam Rifles officer rejected charges of being a mute spectator saying the force can only get as involved as its “mandate” permits.
Local residents also alleged that a nexus of uniformed men, valley-based insurgent groups and Meitei militants is active in the area. Manipur Police, however, denied these allegations in a post on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday, terming them “baseless and misleading”.
‘We are Indians as much as anyone else’
Moreh has also been witnessing protests by local residents against last week’s arrest of Philip Khaikholal Khongsai and Hemkholal Mate, who the police say are among the main suspects in the killing of sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Chingtham Anand Kumar last October.
“All Kukis have been driven out of Imphal and the adjoining areas. How can we be expected to welcome the presence of Meitei commandos in our area then? It may well be the case that the Meitei commandos died when our village volunteers tried to protect our area from them. They should be withdrawn from our area immediately,” said Victor, president of the Hill Tribal Council of Moreh.
These allegations and counter-allegations aside, the fact that both Kuki and Meitei groups are armed with weapons and ammunition remains undisputed. What remains a matter of dispute is the question of the alleged involvement of foreign insurgents operating out of Myanmar, with Kuldiep Singh telling ThePrint that despite the presence of intelligence inputs about their presence, no evidence has been found so far to establish such claims.
Members of the Kuki community in Moreh vehemently deny suggestions that the community is involved in drug trafficking or narco-terrorism — a term which has repeatedly been used by the Manipur CM himself.
On the road to Moreh, which snakes through undulating hills, several culverts have been spray-painted with the message: “N Biren Singh, you are the source of all evil in Manipur.”
“In the name of the Wildlife Protection Act, they are trying to claim our land bypassing hills area councils. This is the root cause of the conflict. They say we are planting poppies. They call us foreigners. We are Indians as much as anyone else,” added Victor.
The Free Movement Regime (FMR) between India and Myanmar, which came into force in 2018, allows members of tribal communities on either side to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa, owing to deep familial and ethnic ties between them. It was aimed at providing a fillip to cross-border trade which always had a robust informal structure.
On Saturday, addressing the passing out parade of the newly-appointed commandos of the Assam Police, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the government was reconsidering the FMR agreement with Myanmar.
Meanwhile, notwithstanding the sharp divide along ethnic lines, the fact that secession from India, advocated by insurgent outfits of both sides, has no popular appeal finds reflection not just in such statements but also everyday realities.
For instance, even as Moreh remained on a knife-edge, barely 20 km away at the Tengnoupal district headquarters, children lined up Saturday to board Assam Rifles vehicles.
Their destination was the Assam Rifles camp at Pallel — which is a buffer zone separating the hills from the valley — where the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) entrance examination was held Saturday.
“Around 120 children are being taken from this particular point itself. Parents know that only good education will offer a key to their children to build a better future. No wonder JNV is in such high demand,” said Dedei Haokip, a member of the Kuki Students’ Organisation which coordinated with the Assam Rifles to send the children to the exam centre.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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Paid news!!!
Paid reporter. Plz increase his/her salary
It’s fake. Myanmar kuki militant opened fire to police force and set fire the houses of common people. This paid media outlet should publish after listening both sides. Be careful we file case against your media for biased news.
Thank you The Print for trying to normalize the killings of Manipur Police officers in Moreh town and the violence targeted specifically at Meitei community and burning down of all Meitei houses in kuki dominated area. All the properties and houses of Meiteis are burnt and leveled to ground zero using JCBs. Instead of trying to encourage the foreign narco terrorists. Pls try to focus on the core issue. Why kuki started the ethnic war against Meitei and acting as the minority victim. In the last 45 days 26 Meiteis have been killed first tortured. Go find the autopsy reports. Why so anti social?