A 34-year-old Meitei woman working in a paddy field in Manipur’s Bishnupur district was gunned down by suspected Kuki-Zo militants who had “sneaked” in from bordering Churachandpur district on Saturday morning.

Officials told The Telegraph that the deceased woman farmer, identified as Sapam Sophia Leimai from Watha Lambi Santipur, was hit on her chest in the firing by the militants on a group of farmers in Saiton village on the border of Churachandpur and Bishnupur districts.

Bishnupur is a Meitei-majority district while Churachandpur is a Kuki-Zo majority district.

The bordering areas of the two districts are the epicentres of the ethnic conflict that erupted on May 3, 2023, leaving at least 239 dead and over 60,000 displaced till date.

“This is harvesting time and she was working in a paddy field in her village. She was helping out with the harvesting. She was hit in the chest area. The gunmen from Churachandpur side had sneaked into the area and fired at the farmers working in the foothills from a 100-200-metre range. The situation is tense but under control,” an
official said.

The official said BSF and army personnel stationed between the hills and valley had fired back at the militants. The body is still with the police and they are persuading the family to take possession. The deceased is survived by her husband and minor children.

Farmers, especially those from valley districts bordering the hills inhabited by the Kuki-Zos, have been one of the most affected sections in the ongoing conflict and Saturday’s firing will adversely impact the harvesting season. Most farmers still live in relief camps despite the deployment of central security forces in the peripheral areas.

The BJP-led coalition government had last year sanctioned around ₹38 crore in crop-loss compensation for farmers who could not tend to their fields fearing attacks from gunmen from the hills. The agriculture sector suffered losses of over ₹225 crore last year, with Bishnupur being the worst-hit among the five valley districts.

Saturday’s killing came two days after a mother of three belonging to the Hmar tribe was allegedly raped and burnt alive and at least 17 houses were torched by suspected militants in Jiribam district.

The situation in and around the Jiribam village where the arson took place remained tense on Saturday.

Hmar, Kuki and Zomi tribes share the same Zo ethnicity.

The body was sent to Silchar in Assam for post-mortem on Saturday morning. Her funeral will take place in her native village on Sunday morning.

The deceased’s husband, in a complaint to the Jiribam superintendent of police on Friday, had stated that his wife was “brutally murdered (raped and burnt alive)... at our residence” in Jiribam district “by fully armed Meitei militants-Arambai Tenggol... My house was also looted and burnt that night.”

According to the copy of the FIR shared by a member of the Indigenous Tribes Advocacy Committee (ITAC), the police registered an FIR on Friday afternoon under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including rape 64 (I) and murder
by a group of people 103 (2) besides Arms Act and the UAPA Act.