The killing of Mrs. Hatneikim Haokip on the Phaikoh-Molvailup road is not just murder. It is a statement of terror. When a pregnant Kuki woman is abducted, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and left naked on a jungle road, it is no longer insurgency. It is the same barbarism the world witnessed with ISIS. And in Northeast India, that ISIS has a name — the NSCN-IM, a group that has mastered the art of killing women and calling it a freedom struggle. In 2026 alone, NSCN-IM has killed 30 Kuki civilians, including three pregnant women and three pastors.
For decades, NSCN-IM has projected itself in Delhi as a political negotiator, wearing suits and talking about peace. But on the ground in Manipur, its cadres have shown their real face. Kuki women have been their softest target. Hatneikim Haokip is not the first; she is the third pregnant Kuki woman killed by NSCN-IM in 2026 alone. Mrs. Haokip was raped, tortured, and executed in a Naga-dominated area. They kill women because they cannot fight men. They desecrate a woman’s body because they want to desecrate an entire community.
What makes NSCN-IM the ISIS of the Northeast is its supremacist ideology. Like ISIS, it believes in a pure homeland cleansed of others. Like ISIS, it uses sexual violence as a weapon of war to humiliate and drive out a community. Like ISIS, it claims a divine mandate while committing the most ungodly crimes. The ceasefire agreement with the Government of India has only given it a license to kill, extort, and rape with impunity, while the Indian state looks away.
Where is the outrage of mainland feminists? Where is the National Commission for Women? Where is the condemnation from those who marched for Manipur last year? Where are the international human rights organizations? Where is the Supreme Court of India? The silence over Hatneikim’s brutal killing, and over the killing of more than 1,100 Kuki civilians by NSCN-IM since 1990, is deafening and political. A pregnant tribal woman from the Kuki community does not fit their selective narrative. If her life mattered, Delhi would have already ordered a CBI probe and abrogated the ceasefire with a women-killer army.
If India wants to stop the killing of Kuki civilians by NSCN-IM, it will take only a week. The camps are known, the cadres are known, the extortion points are known. But instead of acting, India has signed a ceasefire agreement with NSCN-IM. Under this agreement, NSCN-IM can kill Kuki civilians anywhere and then walk back to its designated camp as a so-called “ceasefire group”. It is a ceasefire for Delhi, but a license to kill for the Kukis.
From 1990 till today, NSCN-IM has killed more than 1,100 Kuki civilians, including women, children, pastors, and village chiefs. Villages were wiped out, churches were burnt, women were raped, and hundreds were beheaded. Yet India has still not arrested a single NSCN-IM cadre for these crimes, and there has not been a single conviction.
File Photo: The Kuki women killed by NSCN-IM militants protected under Govt of India ceasefire agreement this year alone (since 11 March 2026). Among the victims are 3 pregnant women including unborn children. Justice still denied.
Justice for Hatneikim cannot be another press release. The Government of India must prove that Kuki women are also Indian women. Abrogate the ceasefire with NSCN-IM, declare it for what it is — a terror outfit — and bring its killers to exemplary punishment. Until then, every Kuki mother walking in Kamjong and Ukhrul will know that the ISIS of the Northeast is still on the prowl, looking for its next woman victim.
