Bunkers, sniper rifles

Indian city of KANGVAI, July 28 (Reuters) - One mile of a roadway in the verdant foothills of India's Manipur state has come to represent a deadly sectarian struggle that has claimed over 180 lives since May and seriously damaged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strongman image.

A major embarrassment for Modi as he gets ready to host the G20 conference in September and run in the general election the following year is the brutal violence that has been going on for over three months in the rural northeast of the nation between the Meitei community and the Kuki tribals.

Although the two groups have historically been at odds, violence broke out in early May when the state high court ordered the government to take into consideration giving the Meiteis access to economic perks formerly reserved for the Kuki tribals.

Assault guns, sniper rifles, and pistols are often fired at one another by competing gunmen who have dug into bunkers and outposts along the highway and in other parts of Manipur as a result of street protests that descended into armed combat.

According to locals and media accounts, tens of thousands of people have fled their homes as a result of the violence, villages have been set on fire, and women have been sexually abused. While army personnel have been instructed to maintain peace but not disarm fighters, the Meitei-dominated state police are perceived as partisan.

MODI'S COMMENTS

Gunfire could be heard coming from both sides this week when a Reuters team visited the Kuki town of Kangvai, which is close to the highway.

A Kuki warrior named Jangminlun Touthang, 32, was guarding a post just across from the Meitei lines while toting a hunting rifle.

The Meiteis, he claimed, "are going to attack us, who are going to burn our houses," and he was come to defend his town from them.

"When they attack, we fire," he declared.

Over two months after the unrest began in May, Modi made his first remarks regarding the bloodshed in Manipur last week. A day after images that seemed to show two Kuki women being paraded naked and attacked by a crowd went viral and received widespread outrage, he pledged to take severe action.

"The law will act firmly and firmly with all of its strength. There is no forgiveness for what happened to the daughters of Manipur, he said.

The Manipur state government is led by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For the second time in his more than nine years in office, Modi is being tested in the federal parliament due to the violence.Even if his administration is not under danger, Modi will probably need to go into great depth about the situation.The opposition will probably question him on why he keeps backing Meitei Chief Minister Biren Singh, who leads the BJP state government in Manipur.

The Meitei side will carry on the conflict. This is only the start, he declared.