A 53-year-old farmer was shot dead by unidentified armed men on Saturday evening while working in a paddy field in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district, threatening to disrupt the state’s fragile, months-long calm. The deceased has been identified as Haolal Singsit, a resident of Govajang village in the Kuki-majority district. According to local officials and police, Singsit sustained fatal gunshot injuries and died on the spot at around 4:00 PM, while his wife, Nemneikim Singsit, who was working directly alongside him in the field at the time of the ambush, miraculously escaped the attack unhurt. Terrified villagers reported hearing approximately 20 rounds of rapid gunfire echoing across the area, triggering widespread panic before state police and Central Armed Police Forces rushed to the site to recover the body and secure the perimeter.
The targeted killing of an unarmed civilian has sparked intense outrage and mourning across the region, drawing sharp condemnation from prominent local leadership groups. The Thadou Inpi-Sadar Hills and the Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) issued strong statements slamming the attack, alleging that armed cadres from regional militant groups breached local sectors to carry out the shooting despite recent security sanitization and area-domination operations. Describing the incident as a direct assault on basic rural livelihoods and the right to life, tribal organizations have demanded that the Manipur government urgently reinforce security deployment along vulnerable village borders, review its tactical preparedness, and launch an immediate crackdown to apprehend the perpetrators. While the exact motive behind the murder remains under investigation, the incident has renewed fears of escalating friction in a district that has historically been one of the primary flashpoints since ethnic violence originally broke out in the state.
