Imphal/New Delhi:
A man in a fluorescent green football shirt came to the camera. In socks and shorts to the knee, he appeared prepared for a football match on the dusty ground. But this ‘soccer player’ had two automatic assault rifles: one hanging from the right shoulder, the other in hand. He raised the gun and laughed.
This ‘soccer warming football’ video appeared for the first time on an Instagram post for a social networks of the Manipur Kangpokpi district. He has turned viral now.
The images showed a dozen men in soccer kits that carried AK and American-Origin M of the M Series Rifles, kicking a football ball. The weapons have red tapes tied around the barrel.
A visible event poster showed the place like (l) Nohjang Kipgen Memorial Playground, K Gamnomphai. There is a town that the locals identify as ‘gamnomphai’ in the Kangpokpi district in Manipur, about 30 km from the Imphal state capital.
The word ‘Sanakhang’ is written in the front of the football shirts, and one of the men who wear an AK assault rifle has the name ‘Ginna Kipgen’ written in the back of his shirt. He is the player No. 15.
The text in the poster of the event seen in the video showed that the football game began on January 20.
The influencer of social networks, Nampi Romeo Hansong, eliminated the Instagram video that carried the water brand ‘Kukiland’ and a hashtag in its name. Hansong, who has 11,000 followers, then published a brief video of the football game on Instagram, without the men who wear assault rifles.
On its YouTube channel, which has 1.09 Lakh of subscribers, he aware A video of almost six minutes that shows men with weapons, of the previous video that eliminated, during the first three seconds.
While the rest of the video has cultural performances and soccer match scenes, men are seen strongly armed with dark green potholes dancing in the place towards the end of the video. Its helmets and shoulder patches carried a red logo generally seen by militants of the Kuki National Front (P), or KNF-P, whose grass is Kangpokpi.
A civil society organization of the MEITEI community in an X publication asked the authorities to “investigate this open assault raffles.”
“This video of a football tournament in Manipur has gone viral on social networks. What is deeply disturbing is the open exhibition of sophisticated weapons by the so -called soccer players. Or is it a Kuki militant soccer tournament? We urge the authorities to investigate this open exhibition of assault rifles, “said the MEITEI Heritage Society.
This video of a football tournament in Manipur has gone viral on social networks. What is deeply disturbing is the open exhibition of sophisticated weapons by the so -called players. Or is it a Kuki militant soccer tournament?
We urge the authorities to investigate this … pic.twitter.com/3ic5uy9bkh
– Meitei Heritage Society (@meiteiheritage) February 6, 2025
The ‘P’ in KNF-P means “President”; It is used to indicate that KNF-P is the original KNF, hence the letter “President”, the supreme. The KNF was founded in 1987. In 1994, it was divided into two features, that is, KNF-MC led by SK KIPGEN, and the original became KNF-P led by StoGboi KIPGEN.
So, KNF is the KNF-P; The rest are their features.
The KNF is a signatory for the controversial agreement to suspend operations (SOO) signed between almost two dozen Kuki militant groups and the State and the center.
Under SOO, militants must remain in the designated camps and their weapons maintained in closed and monitored storage.
The Manipur government has been asking the joint monitoring group, which reviews the SOO agreement every year, to discard it forever, for accusations that SOO groups have been involved in Manipur’s violence from the beginning. The SOO agreement changed in February this year.
The Kuki and the Meiteis tribes have been fighting since May 2023 in a variety of issues such as land rights and political representation.
Manipur weapons problem
In 2023, the year in which Manipur’s violence began, young people armed with automatic assault rifles of both communities were frequently seen from weather. Hundreds of videos have appeared on social networks.
The members of the militia Méitei Arambai Tenggol armed with military and AK grenades launches were often seen ‘patrolling’ the foothills, while their Kuki counterparts were seen in bunkers in the hills with similar weapons.
Both parties claim that they are “village volunteers.”
With the security forces and the government authorities themselves that use the word “village volunteers”, these young groups may have become more and more safe to show lethal weapons and normalize the act in the absence of effective deterrence, have alleged local activists .
Many senior officers of the security forces have said publicly that the militants on both sides are involved in Manipur’s violence. These include violations of the Kuki militant agreement and MEITEI militants who had been inactive during the last 10 years returning to Manipur of Myanmar devastated by war.
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