After two days of protests in Imphal over the medical treatment of three injured Kuki-Zo men at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), they were moved out of the hospital after midnight and shifted to the district hospital in Kuki-Zo-majority Churachandpur district.

A senior security official and an official at the Churachandpur Medical College confirmed that the three men were moved to Churachandpur late on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday and have been taken to the hospital there. The three men had received gunshot injuries during an exchange of fire suspected to have been between Kuki-Zo and Naga groups in Kangpokpi district on Monday morning, and had been taken to RIMS – the state’s premier central government healthcare institute – in the state capital, Imphal, by security forces for treatment.

“It is very unfortunate that this has happened and that people have pushed to deny access to critical medical facilities to them,” said Kuki Inpi Manipur information secretary Janghoulun Haokip.

The three men – identified as Genlenmang Vaiphei, Paugoulal and Lunliandaw Vaiphei – were moved out of RIMS at around 12:15 am with heavy security cover, which had to push through crowds of protestors who were still present outside the hospital. The hospital in Churachandpur is around 60 km away from RIMS.

One of the key features of the conflict between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities has been the restricted movement of people from one community to areas where the other community is in the majority, meaning restricted access to Imphal for members of the Kuki-Zo community. With a conflict flaring up between the Kuki-Zo and Naga communities as well, Naga groups and individuals objected to the Kuki-Zo men being brought to the state capital for medical treatment by security forces.

The protestors who gathered at the hospital from Monday afternoon onwards were from both the Naga and Meitei communities, and they referred to the three admitted men as “militants” and demanded that they be moved out. Their surrounding the hospital and attempts to storm it prompted security forces to use tear gas both on Monday and Tuesday night to disperse them, a move that was criticised by the hospital authorities as posing risks to patients, attendants and healthcare personnel.

Tensions over the admission of the three men have been particularly inflamed in the aftermath of the abduction of six Naga residents of Konsakhul in Kangpokpi on May 13 and the discovery of their bodies last week. The gunfight in which the three had been injured took place in the same general area where the abduction had occurred.