On September 17, a letter to Manipur’s security advisor leaked on social media. The message, sent from the chief minister’s office, was alarming.

It warned that “900 Kuki militants” had entered the state from Myanmar and were planning to “launch multiple coordinated attacks on Meitei villages around September 28”.

The militants, said the note signed by N Geoffrey, secretary to Chief Minister N Biren Singh, were “newly trained in [the] use of drone-based bombs, projectiles, missiles and jungle warfare”.

It was not clear what the source of Geoffrey’s information was.

Since May last year, Manipur has been in the grip of an ethnic conflict between the majority Meiteis, who live in the Imphal valley, and the Kuki-Zo tribes, who live in the hills. The violence has led to an unofficial partition of the state on ethnic lines, with no Meiteis in Kuki-Zo areas and vice versa.

Three days after Geoffrey’s note went viral, security advisor Kuldiep Singh in a press conference said that the state had been placed on “high alert” on the basis of the intelligence input. He said the information about possible attacks on Meiteis is “100% correct unless and until it is proven wrong”.

Remarkably, just days later, the state security establishment retracted all such claims of an imminent Kuki militant attack. On September 25, Singh and the director general of police, Rajiv Singh, said in a joint statement that the recent “intelligence” input issued by the chief minister’s office “could not be substantiated on [the] ground” and “there is no basis currently to believe in any such input”.

The chief minister’s office too backtracked. In a statement that used a far more temperate language than its first alert, it said the “possibility of any such misadventure by armed groups is remote”. “The public need not worry further in this regard,” it said.

This is the second instance in less than a month that claims about armed Kuki-Zo militants have spread panic in the state’s Meitei areas – only to be either rebutted or withdrawn.

On September 1, the Manipur police alleged that Kuki militants had used sophisticated drones to drop bombs and used rocket launchers in an attack on Koutruk, in the Imphal West district. This claim was contested by the Assam Rifles and Army officials.

Not only do both instances underline the rift between the state police and the paramilitary force, observers also flagged them as attempts by those in authority to spread false narratives and fuel more enmity between the communities. “All these false rumours come from the top of the state establishment,” a senior Assam Rifles official posted in Imphal, who declined to be identified, told Scroll.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum or ITLF, which claims to represent the Kuki-Zo people, alleged that the episode was a “dangerous disinformation campaign” orchestrated by Chief Minister N Biren Singh. The forum was also critical of security advisor Singh for giving “legitimacy to the chief minister office’s report by parroting the claims”.

“This [led to] fears among both the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo communities,” the statement added. “The damage has been done, as tensions have spiked on both sides of the buffer zones.

The ‘drone bombings’

After a brief lull of a few months, violence returned dramatically to Manipur in September.

Two people were killed and 10 injured in an attack on Imphal West’s Koutruk area on September 1 – a buffer zone demarcating Meitei areas from the Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi district.

The Manipur police alleged that “high-tech” drones had been used to drop bombs by alleged Kuki militants. In a statement, it said, “While drone bombs have commonly been used in general warfare, this recent deployment of drones to deploy explosives against security forces and the civilians marks a significant escalation.”

The next day, too, the police said a similar “bomb attack using drones” in Imphal West had injured three civilians.

The allegation was denied by Kuki groups, who said they use drones only for surveillance in the buffer zones. They admitted to the use of traditional cannons called “pumpis”, which are crude rockets made by stuffing pipes with explosive material.

A senior Churachandpur-based Kuki leader told Scroll that they launched an attack in response to an incursion by Meiteis into Kuki territory. “We used traditional cannons called pumpis, which have a range of 4-5 km, to drop bombs,” he said. “These are not guided rockets. We can only fire them, we don’t know where they will hit. We use drones only for surveillance,” he explained.

The first public statement refuting the police claims came from PC Nair, the former director general of Assam Rifles, who denied that bombs or ammunition were dropped from the drones. Nair was at the helm of the decision-making process related to Manipur security till July 31, when he retired.

“I have checked with military sources on the ground, the Assam Rifles, and even confirmed it with the army chief," Nair said. “Drones are indeed being used, but not to drop ammunition.”

His comments were sharply criticised by Meitei civil society organisations and the Manipur police. A senior police official called Nair’s claims “myopic” and “immature”. “We strongly dismiss it. There is evidence of drone and hi-tech missile attacks,” said inspector-general of police K Jayanta Singh.

The Imphal-based Assam Rifles official, however, told Scroll that there has been no confirmation that drones have been used to drop bombs. “Where is the proof? Have they done a forensic test?”

He pointed that one of the two casualties on September 1 – a 32-year-old Meitei woman – succumbed to bullet injuries sustained in the attack, while her 8-year-old daughter was injured in her arm, according to a statement from the Manipur Police. “The medical report said she died because of gunshot wounds, not from drones or a rocket attack,” the official said.

Another senior Manipur police official told Scroll that “not all bombs were dropped by drones”. “According to the officials of the Lamsang police station in Imphal West, about 50 to 60 bombs were dropped in the Koutruk area on September 1,” he pointed out. “If only drones were used, there should be at least 10 drones doing five roundabouts. But that did not happen. Instead, long-range pumpis or crude rockets were used.”

Days later, the chief minister’s office’s claim of an incursion by 900 Kuki militants was again countered by the Army.

In a post on Twitter/X, the Army sought details from security advisor Kuldiep Singh on the input of “900 Kuki militants from Myanmar”. “These inputs have very serious security implications and the office of security advisor has been requested to share the details so that appropriate necessary action can be taken at the earliest,” Spear Corps of Indian Army tweeted. The post was later deleted.

“They [the chief minister’s office and the security advisor] really went overboard,” the senior Assam rifles official posted in Imphal told Scroll.

“There are several central intelligence agencies along the Indo-Myanmar border and none of them knew about this alleged infiltration.”

Who gains from the panic?

Observers from the state said the alarm over a militant attack was an attempt by Chief Minister N Biren Singh to shift the blame on to the Assam Rifles.

In the past, too, the Manipur police, which draws most of its constabulary from the Meitei community and is under the command of Biren Singh, has accused the Assam Rifles of siding with Kuki-Zos in this ethnic conflict. Similarly, the commandos of the Manipur police have been accused of abetting and even taking part in the violence against Kuki-Zos.

Several Meitei legislators and groups have accused Assam Rifles of bias towards Kukis and demanded the force’s removal from the state.

“By alleging that 900 Kuki militants have infiltrated the state, he [Biren] is directly blaming the Assam Rifles for not doing their job and maligning them,” said an activist from Zomi community.

The purported use of drones and mortars led to panic in Imphal valley, leading a section of students to hit the streets seeking the removal of the director-general of police and Singh. They also demanded that the unified command, which takes all security-related decisions and is headed by Kuldiep Singh, should be handed over to Biren Singh.

The chief minister’s critics within the Meitei community also pointed out that the effort to create more panic about Myanmar-linked Kuki militants – who Biren Singh has blamed for the conflict – was part of a design to provoke.

“Even if there were such intelligence inputs, what was the purpose of making it public?” asked a Meitei political observer, who requested not to be identified. “It was just meant to create chaos among the people.”

The senior Imphal-based Assam Rifles official agreed: “The alleged intelligence input was just meant to sensationalise, to scare people, and cast Kuki-Zos as terrorists and militants.”

A Meitei rights activist alleged that security advisor had endorsed the claim of a possible Kuki militant attack under pressure from the chief minister and in order to “create fear amongst the Meitei population”. “He had to backtrack and dispel that fear [on instructions from the Centre] as it will have serious international implications if reported outside the country,” the activist said.

The Meitei political observer said that greater insecurity among the Meiteis works to Biren Singh’s advantage. “The chief minister just wants to prove that he is the saviour of Meiteis. He wants to show that he and his people [referring to the radical Meitei group Arambai Tenggol] are fighting for the Meiteis.”

He described the fear-mongering about militant attacks as a “political gimmick for the benefit of those sections of people who are benefiting from the continuous violence”. A similar tactic was being deployed by Kuki-Zo leaders, he alleged. “Even some people on the Kuki side want to keep the pot boiling.”