South Asia Terrorism Portal
KNA-B - NSCN-IM: Rogue vs. rogue Afsara Shaheen Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
On June 15, 2024, R. S. Winson, a 'captain' of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Isaac Muivah (NSCN-IM) was ambushed and killed by the Kuki National Army - Burma (KNA-B) near the Indo-Myanmar border in Angko Ching across the Tengnoupal District of Manipur.
On the same day, a letter (written in Tangkhul) issued by 'lt. gen.' A. Ramsan, 'Deputy Longvibu (commander-in-chief)' of NSCN-IM, read,
The letter alleged that in 'Eastern Nagalim' (present-day Myanmar), as the NSCN-IM continued to strengthen its movement, they face constant opposition from the Indian Security Forces (SFs), who, in connivance with the KNA-B, sought to undermine NSCN-IM's aspirations by persistently opposing and attacking the Nagas. In the letter, the NSCN-IM asserted, further, "Despite these challenges, we remain steadfast in defending our territory for the cause of the Naga Nation."
According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the June 15 incident is the only recorded killing in the clashes between KNA-B and NSCN-IM on Indian territory. Another two such incidents occurred on Myanmar soil:
May 13, 2024: An NSCN-IM cadre, Sentilong Jamir, was killed by KNA-B cadres while 'on duty' at the Indo-Myanmar border. Detailing the incident, 'lt. gen.' Wungyip, 'adjutant general' of NSCN-IM, stated that Sentilong Jamir of Mokokchung, Nagaland, was captured by KNA-B on May 11, 2024, while performing routine duty at the Indo-Myanmar border in Kamjong District, Manipur. Jamir was subsequently tortured to death on May 13, 2024, in Myothit in Myanmar. However, on May 23, 2024, emphasizing that many from the military junta had surrendered to them during the operation, the KNA-B claimed,
February 10, 2024: An NSCN-IM cadre, Honpam Chithung, was killed by KNA-B at the border town of Ongjia in the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. Following the incident NSCN-IM released a statement which read,
Meanwhile, according to NSCN-IM, KNA-B has killed four of their cadres till date in four separate incidents. (Three incidents mentioned above, while details of the fourth incident are not available).
Interestingly, there has been no recorded incident of a KNA-B fatality at the hands on NSCN-IM, till date.
However, on January 2, 2024, at least eight Security Force (SF) personnel, including five special commando personnel and three Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, sustained injuries in rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack by suspected KNA-B militants at Moreh in Tengnoupal District. Following the incident, Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh stated, “We are having some doubts on the involvement of foreign mercenaries from the Myanmar side of the incident (sic). Multiple sources have told us. The involvement of KNA-B is highly possible.”
KNA-B has a Manipur-based wing, the Kuki National Army (KNA).
In a press statement issued on May 23, 2024, by NSCN-IM’s ‘GPRN’, its ‘ministry of information and publicity’ (MIP), claimed that the ‘Naga Army’ recently faced a coordinated attack by the combined forces of the KNA-B and Indian SFs, leaving locals bewildered and wary of their presence.
On May 15, 2024, through another statement, NSCN-IM accused Indian SFs of helping the Kuki militant groups to wage war against the Meitei revolutionary groups in Myanmar. It read,
The statement came a day after a report of a charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was released, in which NIA alleged that the “China-Myanmar module” of NSCN-IM, the Naga outfit that signed a Framework Agreement with the Union Government in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, helped two banned Meitei outfits to infiltrate Manipur to fuel ethnic violence and de-stabilise the State.
Interestingly, on May 14, 2024, the NIA charge sheet alleged that the “China-Myanmar module” of the NSCN-IM supported the cadres of two banned Meitei groups, Kanglei Yaol Kanba Lup (KYKL) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA), to infiltrate into India in order to exploit the current ethnic unrest in Manipur, with the larger goal to de-stabilise the State and wage war against the Government of India (GoI). The charge sheet filed in a Guwahati court on March 7, 2024, against five accused persons who were arrested in July 2023, in Manipur, stated, further, that the accused “criminally conspired with intent to carry out violent terror attacks targeting the rival Kuki-Zo community with prohibited arms and ammunition.” According to the NIA, one of the accused, identified as Anand Singh, mobilised local youth for arms training to escalate the ethnic strife and, in July 2023, participated in a weapons training camp organised in Selloi Langamai Ecological Park near Keikhu by PLA cadres, where around 80 to 90 young men received training in handling firearms.
According to NSCN-IM, there are major concerns about the way the Para Regiment and the Assam Rifles were protecting the crucial Indo-Myanmar border in Kamjong District. It claimed that the Kukis were granted free access to cross the border, while non-Kukis faced discrimination and restrictions. Allegations have been made regarding the unrestricted entry of arms and ammunition into Myanmar, where the KNA-B fights the Myanmar government under the banner of the Democratic Alliance Army. Indian SFs are said to assist and facilitate these operations.
The Indian SFs have been accused by the NSCN of carrying out covert operations alongside KNA-B against the Naga Army and Meitei revolutionaries who are part of the Western Southeast Asia (WeSEA) coalition, despite logistical challenges. According to NSCN-IM, male refugees in Kamjong camps are compelled by AR to engage in espionage and reconnaissance, thereby converting them into ‘henchmen’.
Additionally, NSCN-IM claimed that KNA-B, Peoples Defense Force (PDF), and the Indian SFs were closely connected and that the Indian SFs supplied all of the materials used in their schemes. They provided KNA-B and PDF in Myanmar's Chin Province, which borders Mizoram and Manipur, with weaponry. Furthermore, they provided galvanized iron pipes for their bomb manufacturing plant located in Phaiyang village. KNA-B allegedly received training from the Indian SFs on how to manufacture explosives and use drones to deliver them. The India SFs keep watch on the KNA-B bomb manufacturing facility in Phaiyang around-the-clock. Phaiyang is a village in Myanmar that faces Namlee village in the Kamjong District of Manipur and is near the Indian border.
Allegation further indicate that KNA-B has evolved into a coalition of Kukis from Bangladesh, Manipur, and Myanmar, led by the 21 Para Regiment and 8th Assam Rifles, which the NSCN-IM has accused of being their main enemy. NSCN-IM also claims that the main goal seems to be to neutralise the WeSEA and NSCN-IM revolutionaries.
KNA-B and KNA have, however, refuted any affiliation with the Assam Rifles and the paratroopers. Meanwhile, NSCN-IM asserted that the Kuki group was “being given unrestrained access” to the crossing sites, allowing them to easily cross the border between India and Myanmar.
According to a May 19, 2024, press release by 'information secretary' Francis Kuki, KNA-B clarified,
It is worth mentioning here that, despite the 2015 peace deal or the Framework Agreement signed between the Union Government and the NSCN-IM, the outfit’s ‘chief’ T. Muivah had alleged that the then Naga peace talks interlocutor and former Governor of Nagaland R. N. Ravi had misled a standing committee of Parliament and the Modi government and tried to divide the Naga people. Muivah had gone back to his hardline position, insisting on a separate flag, a separate constitution, and shared sovereignty.
As recorded from reports of intelligence sources, Myanmar still provides safe haven to Indian insurgent groups, including the United National Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) as well as various Naga and Kuki groups, with rebel camps located farther to the north of Moreh and Tamu along the Indo-Myanmar border. The current developments between KNA-B and NSCN-IM suggest a two-way problem — the Manipur conflict spilling over into neighbouring Myanmar, and the impact of the unrest and instability in Myanmar on Indian insurgent groups operating there.
Disturbingly, the allegations of the NSCN-IM and KNA-B against each other’s position clearly highlight the prevailing trust deficits in the ongoing peace processes between the GoI and the NSCN-IM. It is a matter of grave concern, especially when the government enters into peace agreements on its terms on the one hand and, on the other, is alleged to be using a foreign rogue element (KNA-B) to deplete the leadership of the NSCN-IM. Such action would be evidence of poor political management in the region, and would be detrimental to the spirit of the 2015 Framework Agreement, and for an enduring peace in the region.
Maoists: Desperate Measures Deepak Kumar Nayak Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
On June 2, 2024, Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres dragged a 45-year-old man, Shaluram Potai, out of his house in Maspur village in the Narayanpur District of Chhattisgarh and killed him. The ‘Kutul area committee’ of the Maoists left pamphlets at the spot in which they claimed Potai was a ‘Police informer’. However, Police denied the allegation and stated that the Maoists were trying to strike terror among villagers and disrupt the construction of a road that started two days earlier.
On May 26, 2024, a 25-year-old tribal man, Metla Rohit, was allegedly abducted and killed by CPI-Maoist cadres of the ‘Bansadhara-Ghumusar-Nagabali (BGN) division’ in Baripanga village under Kotgarh Police Station limits in the Kandhamal District of Odisha. The Maoists suspected that the deceased, Rohit, was a ‘police informer’, which they mentioned in the pamphlets they left near his body, which was found near an anganwadi (child care) centre in the village. A group of 12 to 15 armed Maoists abducted Rohit from his home and took him to the nearby forest. After killing him, the ultras dumped the body in the village and fled.
On May 25, 2024, a father and son were killed on charges of being ‘police informers’ by the cadres of the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC), a splinter group of the CPI-Maoist, in Hindikala village of the Kunda Police Station area in the Chatra District of Jharkhand. According to reports, the militants barged into the home of Chhedi Birhor (48), accusing him and his son Pankaj Birhor (30) of collaborating with the police. The duo was subjected to a severe beating before being fatally shot.
These are the most recent incidents of civilian killings in which the Naxalites have killed civilians on the pretext that they are ‘police informers’.
According to partial data collated by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the Naxalites (Left Wing Extremists) have executed at least 17 civilians, (10 in Chhattisgarh, five in Jharkhand, one each in Maharashtra and Odisha), branding, or accusing them of being, ‘police informers’, out of the 37 civilians killed in Naxal [Left Wing Extremism, LWE]-related incidents across the country, in 2024 (all data till June 23). In the corresponding period of 2023, at least 14 civilians were executed (11 in Chhattisgarh, one each in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Maharashtra) as a ‘police informers’. In the remaining period of 2023, another 20 civilians were executed (10 in Chhattisgarh, five Jharkhand, four Maharashtra, and one in Madhya Pradesh). A total of 61 civilians were killed in Naxal-related incidents across the country through 2023, of which 34 were executions.
Meanwhile, on June 7, 2024, a 35-year-old man, Dinesh Mandavi, was shot dead by CPI-Maoist cadres in Timdi village under Dhanora Police Station limits in Kondagaon District in the Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh. According to the Police, Dinesh did, in fact, work as an informer for the Special Intelligence Branch of the Police.
With the increasing combing operation against the Maoists in recent times and Maoists struggling to maintain their sway in their areas of dominance and strongholds, Maoists believe that their 'movement’ has been compromised by the leakage of information by ‘moles’, ‘secret agents’ and ‘informers’, and that has resulted in the eradication of their leaders and the depletion of their cadre strength. Through merciless killings, the Naxalites hope to instill fear among civilians and effectively check potential collaborators with the Security Forces (SFs) from passing on information on their activities, movements, and presence.
Indeed, on June 10, 2024, a wanted CPI-Maoist cadre, Kishor alias Mukesh Kannake (37), carrying an INR 200,000 reward on his head, who surrendered in the Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra, in his statement to the Police, revealed that many senior Maoist leaders not only exploited the tribal youth but also killed them, suspecting them to be ‘police informers.’
In most of the civilian killings, the Maoists, through a letters/leaflets/pamphlets, warn the villagers not to communicate or collaborate with the Police, or face death as punishment. For instance, on April 16, 2024, after hacking to death a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-affiliated deputy Sarpanch (head of the Panchayat, a village-level local self-government institution), Pancham Das Manikpuri, accusing him of working for the Police in Dandvan village in Farasgaon under Narayanpur Tehsil (revenue unit) in the Narayanpur District of Chhattisgarh, the Maoists left after stringing up a Maoist banner near the house. In the banner, the Maoists of the ‘west Bastar division committee’ claimed responsibility for the killing and said Pancham didn't heed repeated warnings, "which is why he was killed in front of his family members."
The Maoists have killed thousands of innocent civilians and adivasis (tribals), whose so called ‘cause’ they profess to espouse. Since March 6, 2000, when SATP started documenting LWE-linked violence in the country, an analysis of LWE-linked fatalities suggests that, out of 4,039 civilians killed by the Naxalites in different parts of the country, as many as 880 were branded as alleged ‘police informers’ (all data till June 23, 2024). The first such incident of killing was documented by SATP on March 28, 2000, when Naxalites of the People’s War Group (PWG) killed a former activist of the Radical Youth League (RYL) in the Nizamabad District of Andhra Pradesh. A closer look at the number of such killings indicates that a maximum of 76 such killings were registered in 2010, while a low of five such killings were registered in 2002.
In the interim, the topographical dispersal of such killings suggests that Chhattisgarh recorded 233 such killings and topped the list as the worst among the 11 states from which such killings have been registered since March 6, 2000. Odisha ranked second, 166 such killings; Andhra Pradesh ranked third, with 156; Jharkhand fourth, with 141; Maharashtra, fifth, with 85; Bihar, sixth, with 49; West Bengal, seventh, with 27; Madhya Pradesh, eighth, with 11; Telangana, ninth, with nine; and with two each, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh ranked a joint tenth.
With the recent aggressive SF consolidation against the Maoists, the suspicions of the Maoists have fallen increasingly on civilians. With a hope to safeguard what remains of their movement, the Maoists are on tenterhooks to neutralise assumed 'moles', 'secret agents’ and ‘informers’. As a result, after a continuous decline between 2017 and 2021 [2017 (57), 2018 (51), 2019 (50), 2020 (39), and 2021 (27)], the punitive killings are once again on a rise: 2022 – 32; 2023 – 34; 2024 – 17, (data till June 23, 2024). Indeed, there has been a perceptible rise of 21.42 per cent in the current year (17) as compared with the corresponding period of 2023 (14).
The rising number of punitive killings is an index of the mounting pressure on the Maoists, and their struggle to retain their influence in their rapidly diminishing strongholds, even at the cost of their own mass base. The rebels’ desperation, and the vulnerability of civilians to such punitive attacks, an only rise as SF pressure mounts in the last remaining safe havens of the Maoist movement.
Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia June 17-23, 2024
Civilians
Security Force Personnel
NS
Total
AFGHANISTAN
INDIA
Chhattisgarh
Jammu and Kashmir
Jharkhand
Manipur
India (Total)
PAKISTAN
Balochistan
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Punjab
PAKISTAN (Total)
Total (South Asia)
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Taliban not recognized as legitimate government, says UN official: On June 18, the Deputy Spokesperson for the Director-General of the United Nations (UN), Farhan Haq, said that the UN does not consider the Taliban a legitimate government but recognizes them as de facto authorities on the ground. Haq said, "Well, I just want to underscore that we treat them as the de facto authorities on the ground. They are not treated as the recognized Government of Afghanistan." "You'll have seen what the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General - who visited Afghanistan last year - and others have said. Amu Tv, June 20, 2024.
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The South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) is a weekly service that brings you regular data, assessments and news briefs on terrorism, insurgencies and sub-conventional warfare, on counter-terrorism responses and policies, as well as on related economic, political, and social issues, in the South Asian region.
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