Protesters hold placards and chant slogans demanding deferment of the census in Manipur and implementation of NRC before the census operations, in Imphal on March 11, 2026.
| Photo Credit: PTI
GUWAHATI
At least three women sustained minor injuries in Manipur’s capital, Imphal, on Wednesday (March 11, 2026) when security personnel fired tear gas shells to disperse protestors who took to the streets, demanding a mechanism to insulate the State from “illegal immigrants” before the Census is conducted.
The first phase of India’s 16th Census, comprising house-listing and house count, is scheduled from April 1 to September 30, 2026. The second phase, involving population enumeration, is scheduled for February 2027.
Scores of people, mostly women, gathered near Imphal’s Khwairamband Market on Wednesday (March 11, 2026) morning to demand that the State government conduct an Assam-like exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) before counting heads. They insisted that the NRC or a similar mechanism was necessary to weed out “infiltrators”, primarily from Myanmar.
The NRC in Assam has not progressed beyond the publication of the complete draft of citizens in August 2019. Approximately 19.06 lakh out of 3.3 crore applicants were left out of the draft list.
“The protestors tried to breach the barricades and march outside the market area. A scuffle ensued, and the security personnel fired a few rounds of tear gas shells to disperse the crowd,” an Imphal West district police officer said.
Three women reportedly sustained minor injuries during the scuffle. “The situation is under control now,” the officer said.
The protestors said the government should first identify the outsiders and conduct the NRC to save Manipur and its original inhabitants from “waves” of “illegal immigrants”. The Meiteis, who form the majority in Imphal Valley, often allege that a large section of Kukis have infiltrated from Myanmar.
A couple of months ago, to facilitate the Census exercise, the Manipur government froze the administrative boundaries of all districts, tehsils, and villages in the State from January 1, 2026, to March 31, 2027.
While the focus was on controlling the women-led crowd, members of an organisation called the Campaign for Just and Fair Delimitation locked the office of the State Academy of Training elsewhere in Imphal, alleging that Census-related training was being conducted there.
Members of the group insisted that the return of people displaced by the ethnic conflict between the Kuki-Zo and Meitei communities to their original homes must precede the Census exercise. The conflict, which began in May 2023, left more than 260 people dead and displaced some 62,000 others belonging to about 10,000 families.
According to the government, 2,200 of these displaced families were rehabilitated in prefabricated houses by December 2025.
Published – March 11, 2026 06:03 pm IST
