Riots had actually been in decline before Manipur's May violence

State joined the northeast in reporting a fall in the number of terrorism cases, too

Manipur is battling unrest after logging a decline in violence since 2016, when on average there was a riot in the state almost every three days.

Manipur registered 119 cases of rioting in 2016, shows an analysis of data from the central government’s National Crime Records Bureau. The number fell to 60 in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. This is not just because of the pandemic: riot cases had dropped to 69 even by 2019. To be sure, riots are not unique to the state. Goa in the west had a similar number of riot cases