GUWAHATI
Territorial battles between villages in Manipur and Nagaland have flared up over the past few days.
Four people were injured in a conflict between the residents of two villages bordering Nagaland’s Kiphire and Meluri districts on March 28, 2025 over the construction of an approach road. Three days later, an apex body of the Liangmai community flagged “repeated acts of aggression by people falsely claiming the ownership” of Maremei village in Manipur’s Senapati district.
The conflicts in the two adjoining States, about 260 km apart, were reported six months after four people died in a violent boundary dispute between the residents of Hunphun and Hungpung villages in Manipur’s Ukhrul district.
Nagaland’s Deputy Chief Minister Yanthungo Patton, who also holds the Home portfolio, said disputes between two villages are unfortunate.
“Such incidents not only disrupt peace but also harm the bonds that hold our communities together,” he said while advising the villagers to settle their disputes through dialogue and not conflict.
Officials in Kiphire and Meluri districts said the conflict – a bullet hit one of the four injured – started after the residents of Mimi village tried to stop the people of Laruri and Sutsu villages from using an excavator to carve out a road and cutting firewood in a disputed area.
On April 1, the Liangmai Naga Council of Manipur issued a statement to draw the attention of the Senapati district authorities to the threat from aggressors claiming ownership of Maremei village. The council said the local members of the extremist National Socialist Council of Nagalim, or NSCN (Isak-Muivah), have been supporting the aggressors from the Maram-Thangal region. Liangmai, Maram, and Thangal are Naga tribes.
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The council cited British India documents and official post-independence records to say Maremei was an ancient settlement of the Liangmais, who form the Zeliangrong group with the Zeme and Rongmei Nagas. It also alluded to a memorandum of understanding signed between the Zeliangrong Union and a union of the Marams and Thangals, affirming respect for traditional land boundaries.
Despite such agreements, some NSCN (I-M) members and “certain unscrupulous land speculators issued orders falsely claiming that Maremei village falls under the jurisdiction of the Maram-Thangal region,” the council said.
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“We are looking into the matter to ensure peace in the area,” a Senapati district police officer said. Meanwhile, officials in Assam’s Jorhat district said security has been heightened along the State’s border with Nagaland, particularly in the Mariani area, after reports of attacks on residents by people from across the border. Assam and Nagaland have a decades-old boundary dispute.
On the night of March 31, miscreants from Nagaland took four people from Assam’s Rajabari village at gunpoint and allegedly made them sign blank papers before letting them go. It was the third such incident in March.
