President of the Tangkhul Naga Long while addressing the media expressed his profound sorrow at the loss of two sons of the soil along National Highway 202 on 18 April 2026. “Mind your actions! Mind your actions! We will not stay silent for far too long. Because to us, this is now a righteous war” stated TNL President, Sword Vashum.
The TNL President stated, “we are meeting at a very tragic moment. All of us are aware of what has befallen the Tangkhul Nagas this afternoon. Today, at 2:35 pm, at T.M. Kasom; all of us are aware of it. In that incident, two of our heroes have fallen victims to the treacherous, the most brutal, the most cowardly, cold blooded murder by the Kukis. Well, we have taken note of this. I will not be able to say for and on behalf of Tangkhul what course of actions we would adopt but sure enough I can surely say that in due course, not too long in a matter of three, four days time we will be convening the General Assembly of the Tangkhul Naga Long to adopt a decisive resolution, in response to what has befallen our people today.
“Here, I have the privilege of standing beside the victim families, some of them are not here. One of the fathers is not here because of ill health; he has just left. But, he has left in tears uncontrollably, sobbing away, you can see that kind of expression, I am absolutely heartbroken. Now, make note of this. Take note of this. Only yesterday, 24 hours ago, we have had the benefit of the honourable Chief Minister Y. Khemchand Singh visiting Ukhrul Head Quarter. I was told that en route to Ukhrul, he visited those villages along the road and hardly 24 hours after his visit, the violence took place.
“Now, I would leave it to the state government of Manipur and when I said the Government of Manipur, the Government of India is not excluded. They are equally responsible for what is happening today in our land and the Government of Manipur is accountable to the Tangkhul Nagas: what, how such a thing has happened. We have been warning them, we have been telling them that adequate security measures should be taken. We have met them several times but this is the response we have got today. We will follow it up now, we will press them for concrete solid action, so that, there is no repeat of this. But as I have said, on our part whatever actions we will adopt, we will take the decisions in a few days time when I will convene the General Assembly say next week.
“So, I can only express my sense of grief at the loss of two young men, hardly 50, less than 50; have a long way to go and yet, their lives have been cut short. Now the family, their young children, they have to suffer the loss of for no fault of theirs, simply in the hands of these blood thirsty Kukis. I am so sorry to take names but we have had enough of your sense of gratitude for what we have done to you, our forefathers have done to your people.
“Please, I can only conclude with these words: mind your actions! Mind your actions! We will not stay silent for far too long. Because to us, this is now a righteous war. You have posed this war on us. We have no alternative but to take it squarely in our own stride but you will not find us wanting in our response. This, I assure our friends here, our people here that we would go forward and take necessary actions and in the days, in the time to come.”
SW. Chinaoshang suffered bullet wounds on his left head. Whereas, Yaruingam Vashum was hit by three bullets on the left side of his head. Ukhrul Police informed that the postmortem of the two deceased will be held tomorrow. A forensic team will be arriving from Imphal to conduct the postmortem.
