In Manipur, as ‘rockets’ rain down, battlelines are redrawn, safe zones become less so

The police were called and, along with the local residents, they started looking for the source of the sound. “It took us an hour to find it. It looked like a big pipe in the middle of the paddy fields,” Basanta said.

The paddy fields of Pansang start just beyond the part of the village where the houses are located. There is now a crater, devoid of paddy stalks, where the “pipe” had landed.

This was the first “improvised rocket” that landed close to Moirang. According to the records at Moirang police station, the rocket weighed 23.8 kg, was nine feet in length, and had a diameter of 14.2 cm.

An FIR was registered, but as it caused no injuries and minimal damage, it did not make the news. It did, however, strike panic among residents of Moirang and adjoining villages, who till then had believed their homes were too far away from the “fringe” or “vulnerable” area for a deadly weapon to land at their doorstep.

The “fringe areas”, the nearest of which is 4 km from where the rocket landed, are areas where Meitei-majority Bishnupur district meets the hills of the neighbouring Kuki-Zomi-majority Churachandpur district. Over the past several months, it is these areas that have emerged as frontlines of the ethnic conflict in Manipur.

For the residents of Moirang, the “rocket attack” painted a stark new reality – that the conflict zone has expanded from the “fringe areas” and reached their town, deeper inside the district.

A month passes

Nearly a month after the August 10 rocket strike that went largely unnoticed, the issue of “improvised rockets” took the state by storm when one crashed into the premises of Manipur’s first chief minister M Koireng Singh’s residence in Moirang. The September 6 strike, not far from the busy Moirang market, killed 70-year-old priest R K Rabei, who was at the late Koireng Singh’s house. The house is located around 5 km from the nearest “fringe area”.

The rocket caused a section of the house’s boundary wall to collapse and the windows to shatter. Rabei was hit by a splinter.

The former CM’s great grandson M Kelvin Singh (27) told The Indian Express, “I was inside my room and heard a whistling sound, followed by an explosion. I knew something big had happened.” A splinter had also lodged itself in his 13-year-old sister Selena’s right shoulder and he rushed her to the hospital.

This was at around 3.10 pm on September 6. Earlier that day, another such rocket had landed in Tronglaobi, nearly 5 km from the house and close to the “fringe area” near Churachandpur district.

“There have been gunfights and bloodshed in our district since May 2023, but we had always heard of it happening in ‘fringe areas’. We thought we are outside the range of conflict. But weapons are now reaching Moirang, and it feels like nobody is safe anymore. We don’t know what may land in our houses while we sleep,” Kelvin said.

On Thursday, an unfired rocket was recovered from Shejang, a “fringe area” in Churachandpur district during search operations. According to a senior police officer, it is being examined to better understand these improvised weapons, which have effectively increased the radius of destruction in the conflict.

Moirang SDPO K Santosh Singh, the investigating officer of cases related to these rockets, said they have a range of 4.5-5 km.

“The first one landed on August 10, and there were no casualties. Then two landed in habitation areas on September 6. Then, on September 9, during a joint operation by Churachandpur police and the Sikh Regiment, another was recovered from Moulsang in Churachandpur district right by the district border, which seemed to have been a failed launch. Another was found the next day by CRPF in Gelmol, a fringe area with abandoned houses, which had landed but did not explode,” he said.

The rocket incidents have led to nearly all shops in Moirang market being closed, and all streetlights and house lights being switched off in the evenings.

A new reality

On May 3, 2023, when violence erupted in Manipur, and Meitei residents of Torbung – right at the border of the two districts – fled, they were housed in relief camps in Moirang, around 8 km away. There are still around 3,000 people in different relief camps in Moirang, which has hitherto been considered safe.

“There was panic after the first rocket fell in Pansang, but the public got no clarity about what precautions they could take to protect themselves. Now, we locals feel like this is just the beginning,” said Kumam Davidson Singh, a resident of Moirang.

Matai Society, an organisation founded by him, co-runs a relief camp in Moirang and conducts livelihood and psycho-social support activities in different relief camps.

“We suspended activities for three days after September 6. We got back to work on the fourth day, but we’re taking measures to navigate this new reality. So, we’re trying to move our operations from a more open space to a building and the livelihood work of making bags is being done remotely,” he said.

The state’s security apparatus is also adjusting. The deployment of security forces in these border areas had so far been along the “fringe” to prevent the movement of people from either side into the other.

“The sanctity of the security zone has become tenuous, so we are restructuring the deployment. What was earlier maintained as a line with some marker, like a geographical zone, is now being made a thicker band, to try and keep a 3-km gap between both communities. This has been done since the night of September 6,” said a senior security official, adding that armed groups on both sides are in possession of long-range weapons.

A top security official said the “line” had been pushed deeper into Kuki-majority territory along the “fringe areas”.

“In Churachandpur, we have taken the line 3-4 km back. Where there are lanes leading to the hills, we are conducting searches. Where there are heights within this range from which firing can be done, we are dominating. These are preventive measures, but once a rocket is fired, there is no technology to counter them. So, combing operations are being conducted to retrieve them and find how these are being made,” said the official.

An Assam Rifles official said that the longest range weapon with the infantry are 81mm mortars which also have a 5 km range. “These (the rockets that landed in Moirang) are improvised weapons, but they have been able to generate enough firepower to travel this big distance… But these are still only effective if they land on a hard surface, which is when they explode,” the officer said.