Day after encounter, two bodies found in Manipur’s tension-ridden Jiribam, fresh firing in two districts

Imphal: Two burnt bodies of elderly men were recovered on Tuesday from the debris of a torched house in Manipur’s mixed-population Jiribam district, where the situation remained tense but under control, a day after 11 suspected Kuki militants were killed during an encounter with the CRPF, officials said.

Police said in Imphal that during a search operation for five missing persons, the bodies of Laishram Balen and Maibam Kesho, belonging to the Meitei community, were recovered from the Jakuradhor Karong area where a few more houses and shops were set on fire by suspected Kuki militants on Monday.

A police official said that fresh incidents of firing between security forces and armed unidentified groups took place in two places in Imphal East and Bishnupur districts on Tuesday.

However, there is no report of any injury or casualty in these incidents so far.

A police official in Imphal said that the Central and state security forces are patrolling vulnerable, sensitive, and mixed-population areas of Jiribam district, where the district administration clamped curfew for an indefinite period soon after Monday’s incident to prevent further escalation of violence.

The security forces also continued their search operation to nab the fleeing militants and to rescue the five missing persons, who have been untraced since Monday’s violent incident.

Normal life was also affected in Churachandpur, Pherzawl, Tengnoupal, Chandel and other Kuki-Zo-Hmar tribal-dominated areas on Tuesday after the Kuki-Zo Council, the apex body of the Kuki-Zo tribals in Manipur, called a 13-hour shutdown in the tribal areas to protest how “11 Kuki-Zo village volunteers lost their lives at the hands of CRPF personnel”.

The Kuki-Zo Council urged the tribals to observe a total shutdown from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Sadar Hills, Churachandpur, and other tribal-inhabited districts.

“The shutdown was called in honour of the victims and to express our collective grief and solidarity to those who were brutally shot dead,” the Council’s Information Secretary Khaikhohauh Gangte said.

At least 11 suspected Kuki militants were killed in a 40-45 minute-long exchange of fire between the security forces and the militants on Monday after the rebels, armed with sophisticated weapons, fired indiscriminately at a CRPF camp in Jiribam.

Two CRPF personnel also sustained injuries during the fierce gun battle at Borobekra, and one of them stated to be critical has been airlifted to Silchar Medical College and Hospital in Assam and is under treatment.

According to a Manipur Police statement, arms and ammunition recovered from the spot included three AK series rifles, four SLRs, two INSAS rifles, a rocket-propelled grenade, a pump action gun, bulletproof helmets and magazines.

During the past two weeks, farmers in a few districts were unable to work in their paddy fields due to the firing of armed attackers from hilltops towards the low-lying fields. Two women — Sapam Ongbi Sonia Devi, belonging to the Meitei community and Sangkim, belonging to the Hmar tribal community – were killed by the suspected armed attackers in the Bishnupur and Jiribam districts, respectively, last week.

Ethnic violence-ridden Manipur has been witnessing a series of attacks and violent incidents in different districts including Jiribam district during the past two weeks. The Jiribam district, adjoining southern Assam, has witnessed several incidents of violence this year, though the overall situation in the district had been relatively peaceful even after ethnic violence broke out in many other districts of the northeastern state since May last year.

IANS