Part of the Manipur Crisis Chronicle. Every claim carries a cited source; contested numbers are shown with their dates, never merged. This installment covers 1–30 September 2025.
The month's frame-shift happened nine days before the visit. On 4 September 2025 the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Government of Manipur, and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) and United People's Front (UPF) signed a re-negotiated tripartite Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement in New Delhi, effective one year from the date of signing.[282] Among the revised ground rules, KNO and UPF agreed to relocate seven designated camps from conflict-prone areas, reduce the overall number of camps, and move weapons to the nearest CRPF or BSF camps; a physical verification of cadres would de-list foreign nationals, if any, and a Joint Monitoring Group would oversee compliance, with the MHA reserving the right to review the pact on violations.[282] The Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) simultaneously agreed to reopen National Highway-2 (Imphal-Dimapur) through Kangpokpi "for the free movement of commuters and essential goods", in the MHA's description.[278] India Today NE first reported the signing that day under a "major breakthrough" framing; its report carried the MHA's provisions verbatim and closed with the expectation of relief for citizens.[282]
The re-negotiation's own history was reported by The Hindu a day later with the counter-frame attached: the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), one of the largest Meitei civil-society groups, rejected the pact as "an undemocratic and hegemonic imposition upon the indigenous people and its elected representatives of Manipur".[278] COCOMI argued the elected Government of Manipur had, through a Cabinet decision on 10 March 2023, unanimously resolved to abrogate the SoO, and that under President's Rule "the administration is being run by an authority appointed from New Delhi, which lacks the legitimacy to represent the people of Manipur in letter and in spirit".[278] India Today NE's 5 September report carried COCOMI's stronger lexicon: the groups were "Chin-Kuki armed narco-terrorist groups", the extension was "anti-people", and it undermined the Manipur Legislative Assembly's unanimous resolution of 29 February 2024 urging revocation of the SoO.[284] The two outlets agree on the date, the signatories, and the one-year term; they differ in whose framing the report leads (see 029a below).[278][284]
The Kuki-Zo signatories themselves disputed the official description. On 7 September, KNO and UPF said in a statement that the Press Information Bureau (PIB) had "put a spin on the signed official agreement", and that the signed text said only that the SoO "shall be followed by a tripartite dialogue with KNO and UPF to pave the way for a negotiated political settlement under the Constitution of India in a time-bound manner".[279] The groups said that following the renewed agreement, future talks would focus on the demand for a union territory (UT) with legislature for Kuki-Zo areas — a demand they said changed after 3 May 2023, from local autonomy by way of a Territorial Council within Manipur to a UT with legislature, submitted at the SoO meeting of 1 September 2023.[279] The Hindu noted the pact's 1990s origin: "The SoO agreement was signed in the wake of the Kuki-Naga clashes in the 1990s, when hundreds were killed."[279] The PIB-versus-signatories discrepancy is the installment's clearest "whose record is the first draft" datapoint: India Today NE's 4 September "breakthrough" report, the MHA's framing, and the PIB summary all precede — and differ in emphasis from — the groups' own reading of their signed text.[279][282]
The same week brought a second, cross-community pressure move: the United Naga Council (UNC), the apex body of Nagas in Manipur, announced a "trade embargo" across Naga-inhabited areas from midnight on 8 September, in protest against the scrapping of the Free Movement Regime (FMR) and the fencing of the India-Myanmar border.[283] The embargo targeted goods vehicles on the highways through Senapati, Ukhrul, Chandel, Tamenglong, Kamjong and Noney — both of Manipur's lifelines, NH-2 (Dimapur–Imphal) and NH-37 (Silchar–Imphal), pass through Naga-majority districts.[283] The UNC called it "the first step of non-cooperation", and The Hindu reported it as a fallout of the inconclusive 26 August talks between a UNC team and Central officials on the two issues.[280] The UNC framed the fencing as cutting "familial and ethnic ties between Nagas on either side of the border" and demanded "free, prior, and informed consent of the Naga people for any project affecting them and their homeland straddling the two countries".[280] By 9 September, trucks were stranded on major roads while shops were exempted.[280] The Hindu's same dispatch carried a separate condemnation — by the Thadou Inpi Manipur and the Sagolmang Area Naga Students' Association — of armed Kuki extremists who reportedly intercepted a bus at Molnom in Ukhrul on the morning of 8 September, frisked passengers, seized phones, and fired blanks; those organizations said the men belonged to an outfit that signed a SoO agreement.[280] The two moves — KZC reopening NH-2 with MHA cooperation, UNC embargoing it — sit side by side in the same week as opposite uses of the same road (see 029b below).[278][280][283]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Manipur on 13 September 2025 — his first visit since the ethnic violence that began on 3 May 2023.[281][285] He interacted with displaced families in Churachandpur, travelled by road after heavy rains grounded his helicopter, and laid foundation stones for projects worth over ₹8,500 crore.[285] He called Manipur "the land of courage and determination".[285] The Congress termed the trip "tokenism", a "pit stop", and a "grave insult" to the people of Manipur.[285] The Hindu's 21 September analysis said up to ₹8,500 crore in investments was announced, that the PM "met with select displaced people", and that those he did not meet were divided — "some said it gave them hope for an end to the conflict; some that investments didn't necessarily mean peace"; the piece also carried the toll framing "about 250 people have been killed and over 60,000 displaced in a battle for land rights and Scheduled Tribe status" and described the segregated hill-valley arrangement known as 'buffer zones'.[281]
Dissent came from within his own party. BJP MLA Paolienlal Haokip, from the Kuki community, said: "But not even ten minutes were spared to listen to our woes—not even from party MLAs", and called the visit "mere optics".[286] Ten legislators from the Kuki community, cutting across BJP, KPA and Independent affiliations, submitted a joint memorandum during the visit declaring: "We can now live in peace only as good neighbours, never under the same roof again", and asserted the minority community had been subjected to unprecedented "ethnic persecution", alleging state complicity in the violence that forced them out of the valley areas.[286] The Kuki-Zo Council submitted its own memorandum appealing for a lasting political solution, citing over 250 community members killed, more than 360 churches and other places of worship destroyed, upwards of 7,000 homes burned, and around 40,000 people still displaced in relief camps; it reiterated the demand for a UT with legislature under Article 239A, "not a matter of convenience but a necessary step for ensuring peace, security, and the survival of the community", and urged expedited dialogue citing the 4 September SoO agreement.[287]
The visit's reception is the month's cleanest perception datapoint: official framing ("land of courage", ₹8,500 crore, cooperation) against Congress "tokenism", against a ruling-party MLA's "wastage of resources", against the KZC memorandum's 250/360/7,000/40,000 ledger, against The Hindu's "select displaced people" qualification.[281][285][286][287] No outlet reported an official reply to the MLAs' memorandum or the KZC's numbered claims within this window.
On the evening of 19 September, armed men opened fire on an Assam Rifles convoy vehicle at Nambol Sabal Leikai in Bishnupur district, killing two personnel and injuring five others.[288] Police detained two individuals for verification, and recovered a silver-blue van believed used by the attackers at Mutum Yangbi, about 10 km from the site; the probe found the van had changed hands several times.[288] On 23 September, Khundongbam Ojit Singh (47, of Awang Leikinthabi, Imphal West) was arrested at about 1:00 am by a joint team of Assam Rifles and other security forces in the Kameng area of Bishnupur; police said he confessed to being a bailed-out member of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) still working for the group, and that the ambush, around 5:30 pm, had targeted 33 Assam Rifles personnel, after which the attackers fled toward Loktak Lake.[289] The recovery from his info included an A4 rifle, an HK rifle, two AK rifles, an INSAS rifle, and ammunition (170 AK rounds, 216 M/16 rounds, 67 INSAS rounds), with 170 rounds of .303 and three launcher shells; Singh had previously been arrested on 22 April 2007.[289] The ambush's toll (two dead, five injured) is consistent across the 21 September and 24 September reports; the 33-personnel figure appears only in the later, arrest-based report.[288][289]
The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was extended on 26 September for six months from 1 October — in entire Manipur except the jurisdiction of 13 police stations — along with nine districts in Nagaland and 21 police-station areas in five more districts, plus Tirap, Changlang and Longding in Arunachal Pradesh and three police-station areas in Namsai district.[290] The notification's Manipur carve-out (entire state except 13 police stations) matches the 30 March 2025 extension reported in this chronicle (whole state minus 13 PS from 1 April).[194]
On 30 September, India Today NE reported NCRB data showing Manipur recorded the highest number of violent crimes in the Northeast in 2023: 14,427 violent crimes versus 631 in 2022 and 545 in 2021; 3,339 crimes and atrocities against Scheduled Tribes versus one in 2022 and none in 2021; 5,421 rioting incidents and 6,203 arson cases (both region-leading); 151 murders, 818 attempts to commit murder, 89 kidnappings, 27 rapes, 330 robberies and 1,213 dacoities; crimes against women declined to 201 from 248 in 2022.[291] The same report restated the death toll as "more than 260 people have been killed" — versus The Hindu's 21 September "about 250" and the KZC memorandum's "over 250"; the chronicle keeps the three figures dated and unmerged.[281][287][291]