Imphal:

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh has condemned what he called “indiscriminate firing by Kuki militants on two villages in Imphal East district” on Friday.

A policeman and another person were injured in the firing that came from the hills, the police said.

In a post on X, the chief minister asked the central forces and the state police to work with proper coordination during such a situation.

“Strongly condemn the indiscriminate firing by Kuki militants at Sanasabi and Thamnapokpi in Imphal East, which injured civilians and security personnel. This cowardly and unprovoked attack on innocent lives is an assault on peace and harmony,” Mr Singh said in a post on X.

“Adequate security personnel have been rushed to the affected areas. The injured are receiving necessary medical assistance, and the government calls for calm and unity in the face of such challenges. Central forces and state police should have proper coordination and understanding when dealing with such situations,” the chief minister said.

The two villages are near the foothills. Visuals from the area show people from the Meitei community including elderly women and children running amid the sound of automatic gunfire.

“They are firing from everywhere. Bullets are flying,” a man carrying an elderly woman on his back said in another video. “Tamo (brother), come here, don’t stand there,” he said to an old man who stood some steps away in the open.

Armed men from the hilltops started firing indiscriminately and hurling bombs at 10.45 am at Sanasabi village and adjacent areas, forcing security personnel to retaliate, a police officer told news agency PTI. “Armed men also launched attacks at Thamnapokpi village at 11.30 am, creating panic in the area.”

Security forces, including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, rescued several women, children and elderly people who were caught in the crossfire, PTI reported.

Former Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court Siddharth Mridul on Tuesday said every time the situation in Manipur seems to be getting better, fresh violence breaks out.

“… The reason why I believe that there is somebody interested in keeping the pot boiling is that every time the situation seems to be normalising, there is a fresh injection of violence, which leads me to believe that there are forces that are external, not internal. Even if the forces are external, they do have collaborators locally who ensure that the agenda of keeping Manipur burning is pursued vigorously,” Justice Mridul said at an event in Delhi.

“I am beginning to subscribe to the idea that there does seem to be an invisible hand. Whose hand is it is not clear to me yet. There could be a number of factors at play,” he said.

There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the Meitei-dominated valley. The clashes between the Meiteis and the Kuki tribes have killed over 250 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category.

The Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.

With inputs from PTI

Imphal/New Delhi:

The bodies of three women were brought to a morgue in Assam’s Silchar on Friday, amid tension in neighbouring Manipur’s Jiribam district after three women and three children were taken hostage by suspected Kuki militants on Monday.

The bodies are yet to be identified, sources at the morgue who have seen the bodies told NDTV. The morgue is at Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMHC), some 50 km from Jiribam. The bodies were brought to the morgue at 7 pm on Friday, sources said, adding autopsies of bodies found in Jiribam are done in SMHC due to lack of proper infrastructure in the town.

An infant and a two-and-half-year old child are among the three children who were taken hostage on Monday. The three women hostages include the mother of the two younger children. All are from the Meitei community.

They were kidnapped 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.

Laisharam Herojit, a low-level worker in the state government, in an interview to NDTV on Wednesday appealed to any group that may have held his family hostage to release them safely. He said a friend of his wife saw them being taken away on a boat by armed people.

The CRPF camp and the police station in Jiribam’s Borobekra are less than 1 km from the Barak River.

Mr Herojit told NDTV 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.

“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 told NDTV.

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.

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.