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A man in a fluorescent green football jersey came walking towards the camera. In knee-high socks and running shorts, he appeared prepped for a football match on the dusty ground. But this 'football player' carried two automatic assault rifles - one slung from the right shoulder, the other in hand. He raised the gun and laughed.
This 'football match warmup' video first appeared in an Instagram post by a social media influencer from Manipur's Kangpokpi district. It has gone viral now.
title="Latest and Breaking News on News Agency" />The visuals showed a dozen men in football kits carrying AK and American-origin M series assault rifles, kicking a football around. The guns have red ribbons tied around the barrel.
An event poster visible in the video showed the place as (L) Nohjang Kipgen Memorial Playground, K Gamnomphai. There is a village which locals identify as 'Gamnomphai' in Manipur's Kangpokpi district, some 30 km from the state capital Imphal.
title="Latest and Breaking News on News Agency" />The word 'Sanakhang' is written on the front side of the football jerseys, and one of the men carrying an AK assault rifle has the name 'Ginna Kipgen' written on the back of his jersey. He is player No. 15.
The text on the event poster seen in the video showed the football match began on January 20.
title="Latest and Breaking News on News Agency" />The social media influencer, Nampi Romeo Hansong, deleted the Instagram video which carried the watermark 'Kukiland' and a hashtag in his name. Mr Hansong, who has 11,000 followers, later posted a short video of the football match on Instagram - without the men carrying assault rifles.
On his YouTube channel, which has 1.09 lakh subscribers, he posted a nearly six-minute-long video showing the men with guns -- from the earlier video that he deleted -- for the first three seconds.
title="Latest and Breaking News on News Agency" />While the rest of the video has cultural performances and scenes from the football match, heavily armed men in dark green battledress are seen dancing at the venue towards the end of the video. Their helmets and shoulder patches carried a red logo usually seen worn by militants of the Kuki National Front (P), or KNF-P, whose turf is Kangpokpi.
A civil society organisation of the Meitei community in a post on X asked the authorities to "investigate this open display of assault rifles".
"This video of a football tournament in Manipur has gone viral on social media. What is deeply disturbing is the open display of sophisticated weapons by the so-called footballers. Or is it a football tournament of Kuki Militants? We urge the authorities to investigate this open display of assault rifles," the Meitei Heritage Society said.
This video of a football tournament in Manipur has gone viral on social media. What is deeply disturbing is the open display of sophisticated weapons by the so called footballers. Or is it a football tournament of Kuki Militants?
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 KNF-P is the original KNF, hence the letter "president", the supreme. The KNF was founded in 1987. In 1994, it split into two factions i.e. KNF-MC led by SK Kipgen, and the original became KNF-P led by ST Thangboi Kipgen.
So, KNF is the KNF-P; the rest are its factions.
title="Latest and Breaking News on News Agency" />The KNF is a signatory to the controversial suspension of operations (SoO) agreement signed between nearly two dozen Kuki militant groups and the state and the centre.
Under SoO, the militants are to stay at designated camps and their weapons kept in locked, monitored storage.
The Manipur government has been asking the joint monitoring group, which reviews the SoO agreement every year, to scrap it for good, over allegations that the SoO groups have been involved in the Manipur violence from the beginning. The SoO agreement lapsed in February this year.
The Kuki tribes and the Meiteis have been fighting since May 2023 over a range of issues such as land rights and political representation.
Manipur's Gun Problem
In 2023, the year the Manipur violence began, young men armed with automatic assault rifles from both communities were frequently seen roaming in the open. Hundreds of videos have surfaced on social media.
Members of the Meitei militia Arambai Tenggol armed with military-grade grenade launchers and AKs were often seen 'patrolling' the foothills, while their Kuki counterparts were seen in bunkers on the hilltops with similar weapons.
Both sides claim they are "village volunteers".
With the security forces and the government authorities themselves using the word "village volunteers", these groups of young people may have become more and more confident of showing off lethal weapons and normalising the act in the absence of effective deterrence, local activists have alleged.
Many senior officers of the security forces have publicly said militants from both sides are involved in the Manipur violence. These include violations of the SoO agreement by Kuki militants, and Meitei militants who had been dormant for the last 10 years returning to Manipur from war-torn Myanmar.