Five Naga civilians were killed and one injured after suspected Kuki armed groups allegedly attacked them along the Imphal-Tamei road in Manipur on Thursday, the police told Scroll.The incident took place between Makui Ashang and Thanamba Naga areas in the Kangpokpi police station area.Naga leader Wilubao Newmai alleged that armed Kuki militants had attacked the civilians.Following the incident, the Naga People’s Organisation, a civil society group of the community, called for a shutdown in the headquarters of the Senapati district to protest the killings, Ukhrul Times reported.The attack took place on an alternate route the Nagas have been using to avoid the highway that connects Senapati to Imphal, through Kangpokpi town, a community leader said.“They were on the way to Senapati town to attend a meeting when they were ambushed on the way, the first such kind of killing in this area,” said Timothy Wijunamai, the president of the Liangmai Naga Council.“We have been using this off road as an alternative route to connect with the rest of the world since the beginning of the ongoing crisis,” he said. “We were using this isolated hilly uneven road because we cannot use the highway after the Kuki Naga strife.”This came less than two weeks after two Naga persons were killed in firing by suspected militants in Kangpokpi.On August 14, a group of men armed with “sophisticated weapons” attacked Langka Naga village.The Liangmai Naga Council-Manipur had condemned the attack and alleged that militants from the Kuki National Front (P) were behind it. The council had also announced an immediate shutdown of Liangmai Naga-inhabited areas of the state until further notice.Tensions between the Kukis and the Nagas escalated in Manipur in February after an alleged assault involving members of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki-Zo communities in the Ukhrul district. At least 30 persons from the two communities have been killed since tensions erupted.This followed the ethnic clashes that broke out in Manipur in May 2023 between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities. At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since then in the conflict.Inputs from Rokibuz Zaman. Edited by Anamika Pathak.