Partial internet shutdown in troubled Indian state after unrest kills 4

A Meitei family sits in a relief camp in Imphal, Manipur, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

A partial internet shutdown was in place in northeastern India’s troubled Manipur state on Tuesday after renewed violence caused the deaths of four people, including two children, officials said.

Manipur has seen periodic clashes for nearly three years between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki community that have killed more than 250 people.

The latest flare-up on Tuesday came after months of relative peace and followed a reported attack by Kuki groups that killed two Meitei children in Bishnupur district, according to a security official and another government official.

An incensed Meitei mob later stormed a paramilitary police camp, leading soldiers to open fire and resulting in the deaths of two more people, two officials told AFP. Another five were wounded.

The local government said it had ordered all internet and mobile data services in volatile districts to be shut off for five days to bring the unrest under control.

Authorities also announced a curfew in some areas, including Bishnupur and the state capital Imphal.

The reported Kuki attack “appears to be the handiwork of individuals or groups with vested interests in disturbing the prevailing peace in the state,” read a statement issued by the office of Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh.

A “massive combing operation is underway” to apprehend the perpetrators, the statement said.

“Helicopters are also being used,” it added.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, a Kuki civil society body, said the attack “should not be attributed” to the community.

Internet services were shut down for months in Manipur during the initial outbreak of violence in 2023, which displaced around 60,000 people from their homes, according to government figures.

Thousands of the state’s residents are still unable to return home owing to ongoing tensions.

Longstanding enmity between the Meitei and Kuki communities revolves around competition for land and public jobs.

Rights activists have accused local leaders of exacerbating ethnic divisions for political gain.