The four men kneeling in the makeshift bunker face out over a lush green paddy field, their guns resting on a wall of cement sacks. Bamboo poles prop up the corrugated tin roof.

Wearing homemade bullet-proof vests, they train their weapons - mostly old single and double-barrelled shotguns - on a rival bunker less than a mile away. A belt of cartridges hangs from one of the poles.

The men are all civilian members of a "village defence force" - among them a driver, a labourer, a farmer, and Tomba (whose name we have changed to protect his identity). Tomba ran a mobile phone repair shop before deadly ethnic conflict erupted in May in India's north-east Manipur state.

Warning: This article contains details of violence that readers may find upsetting

The segregation of communities in this corner of the world's fastest-growing major economy feels like a heavily-militarised border separating countries at war.

"We have to protect ourselves because we don't think anyone else will. I feel scared but I have to hide it," Tomba said.

 

He and the other three in the bunker belong to the majority Meitei community, who largely follow Hinduism. A sense of fear is all pervasive in Manipur since shocking violence between their community and minority Kuki groups broke out, marked by brutal killings and sexual crimes against women. More than 200 people have been killed, roughly two-thirds of them Kukis, a collective name for the Kuki, Zomi, Chin, Hmar and Mizo tribes who are mostly Christians.

 

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Something smells about this story. 

 

 

At least one of them loves Phuket. 

I explored India in the 1970s, even then those northeastern states were reportedly troubled, and it was near impossible to get the required tourist permit to go there.  Was hardly any mention of it in the Indian or international press.

About 20 years ago I met a European couple with Doctors Without Borders working in Manipur, that was the first time I met people who had actually been there.  They were on a white sand-blue water vacation in Malaysia and would be returning.  They told me just how bad it was.  Up until then I suspected the Indian gov't just didn't want bother with such a remote area.

I have no inside knowledge of this, but I think it would be logical to consider China may have something to do with it.