Hands tied, stab wounds: 71-year-old Kuki farmer found dead a day after abduction in Manipur

Kangpokpi: A 71-year-old Kuki farmer abducted from his paddy field in Manipur's Kangpokpi district on Saturday was found dead a day later, his hands tied and his body bearing stab injuries. The killing of Hemjang Haokip, a resident of Khunkho Kuki village, has set off fresh tension in the Leimakhong-Khunkho area, with combined teams of state and central security forces, including the CRPF's Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), deployed and a search operation launched. According to the Kuki Youth Organisation (KYO), Leimakhong, armed men suspected to be cadres of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) took Haokip away from his field at around 3 p.m. on Saturday, and his temporary field hut was subsequently set ablaze. The Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) separately alleged the involvement of suspected NSCN-IM men and the ZUF-Kamson faction. Officials said unidentified miscreants set fire to the paddy field during the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, and Haokip's body was recovered during the search that followed. These allegations have not been independently verified, and there has been no confirmation that NSCN-IM cadres were involved in the incident. The killing comes amid heightened tensions in the Leimakhong-Khunkho belt, where Kuki groups allege that Naga residents have been preventing Kuki villagers from reaching their agricultural fields and harassing those travelling to their farms and homes. A farmer's field, in other words, has become a contested frontier, and the people who work it are caught between armed claims they did not make. The wider backdrop is Manipur's long-burning ethnic conflict, which has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands since May 2023. Peace, in the official telling, is always returning; on the ground, a 71-year-old man goes to his field and does not come back. His hut is burned, his hands are tied, and the state arrives with commandos after the fact, as it always does. What is striking is the machinery of impunity that surrounds each killing. Allegations fly between organisations, verification never quite arrives, and every death is absorbed into the arithmetic of a conflict that the country's capital has learned to look past. Haokip's death is not an aberration in Manipur's story. It is the story, repeated with new names, while the search operations end and the commandos move on.