Violence continued in Manipur for the second day on Saturday after an elderly Meitei man was killed
Imphal/New Delhi:
Six people were killed in fresh violence this morning in Manipur’s Jiribam district, the police said. Suspected Kuki insurgents attacked Nungchappi village in the district 229 km from the state capital Imphal, killing a 63-year-old man identified as Yurembam Kulendra Singha. The attack came a day after an elderly man from the valley-dominant Meitei community, who was offering prayers, was killed in a rocket-propelled bomb attack by Kuki insurgents in Manipur’s Moirang town, according to the police.
The five others were killed in a gunfight between armed groups of the Meitei community and the hill-dominant Kuki tribes, sources said. These groups call themselves “village defence volunteers”.
The Jiribam Superintendent of Police (SP) and a police team rushed to the area, but were fired at, the police said in the statement, adding the team “retaliated strongly and controlled the firing.”
An anti-drone system has been deployed, the police said, nearly a week after suspected Kuki insurgents attacked villages in Imphal West district with weaponised drones – the first time suspected insurgents used drone attacks on Indian soil.
The police said that in a multi-pronged approach, army helicopters are keeping an eye on the ground, while combing operations in “suspected areas” in both the hills and the valley are going on. A team is also monitoring social media posts to catch instigators of violence, the police said.