Manipur’s Meitei community holds a candlelight vigil in Imphal seeking safe release of hostages
Imphal/New Delhi:
The police have found six bodies five days after three women and three children, including an eight-month-old, from the Meitei community were taken hostage by suspected Kuki insurgents from Manipur’s Jiribam district, neighbouring Assam, top sources in the state government told NDTV on Saturday morning.
The bodies of a woman and two children were brought to a morgue in Assam’s Silchar on Friday night, amid tension in neighbouring Jiribam district.
Last night, sources at the morgue in Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMCH) who saw the bodies told NDTV that the bodies of three women were brought there. They said initial examination of the bodies indicated they were adults.
This morning, the sources confirmed two of the bodies were of children and one was of a woman. The corpses had bloated due to some decomposition, they said.
Post-noon, top government sources told NDTV three more bodies were found, taking the total to six; these three bodies are yet to be brought to SMCH, and also yet to be identified.
Laisharam Herojit, a low-level worker in the state government, whose two children, wife, mother-in-law and wife’s sister were among the hostages, told NDTV this morning that he is yet to see the bodies. All are from the Meitei community.
The morgue is at Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMCH), some 50 km from Jiribam. The first three bodies were brought to the morgue at 7 pm on Friday, sources said, adding autopsies of bodies found in Jiribam are done in SMCH due to lack of proper infrastructure in the town.
The women and children were taken hostage by a group of suspected Kuki militants from Jiribam’s Bokobera neighbourhood while another group of militants were engaged in a gunfight with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), sources have said.
Ten of the suspected Kuki militants were shot dead in the encounter.
Mr Herojit told NDTV on Wednesday a friend of his wife saw them being taken away on a boat by armed people on Monday. He said he got a call from his wife when shooting and arson broke out in Borobekra on Monday. The call got disconnected and when he dialled her back, he found the phone was switched off.
The CRPF camp and the police station in Jiribam’s Borobekra are less than 1 km from the Barak River.
“She was crying on the phone. She said they were surrounded by a lot of armed people. The call got disconnected, after which I called her back, but the mobile was switched off. My mother-in-law’s phone was also switched off. About an hour later – and we had been searching for a while – a Bengali friend of my wife told us she saw them being taken away in a boat,” Mr Herojit said on Wednesday.
The Kuki tribes have claimed those who were killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”, an allegation that CRPF and police sources have denied.
The security forces have released what they claimed were weapons – AK and INSAS assault rifles and a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher – recovered from the encounter site, and visuals of police vehicles with numerous bullet holes.
Kukis Protest Outside Morgue
A group of people from the Kuki tribes surrounded SMCH and began a protest to block the transport of the 10 bodies kept in the morgue since Monday. They claimed the 10 Kuki men killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”.
The protesters this morning blocked policemen who tried to take the 10 bodies out of the hospital for transport to Manipur’s Kuki-dominated Churachandpur. The Kukis want the bodies to be handed over to them in Silchar, from where they plan to take the body towards neighbouring Mizoram.
Government officials and the police tried to convince them, but after nearly an hour of discussion, police started pushing the protesters. The protesters also pushed back and some police officers fell on the ground, which led to a lathi-charge.
The Assam Police are on high alert in the area.
