A Day After 10 Militants Were Killed, 2 Meitei Men Killed, 6 Missing: Police (image @manipur_police)
Two Meitei men were found dead in Manipur’s Jiribam on Tuesday, said police. The bodies were found a day after security forces killed at least 10 suspected militants in the area. The police said six people who were living in a relief camp in the area have gone missing since the gun fight previous day. Local residents reported that the militants had attacked homes and shops in the Meitei settlements in the area.
The area, including Jakuradhor, and Borobekra of the Jiribam district, witnessed a major gun fight between the armed group, who were believed to be from Hmar community, and police. The latter said the gun fight took place after a CRPF post located at Jakuradhor and the nearby Borobekra police station came under fire.
The two men were identified as Laishram Narel Singh (63), and Maibam Keshwo Singh (71). According to the local residents, the two had been staying at a relief camp at Borobekra police station and were among the 10 people from the camp to have gone missing since the gun fire exchange between police and the armed men.
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According to the residents, some 118 people had been staying at the relief camp set up in the police station for residents of nearby villages after violence and arson had first gripped the area in June, this year. The rest of the Meitei people displaced from this area are staying in relief camps in Jiribam district headquarters, a little over 20 km away.
“During the daytime, the people residing in the relief camp head outside. When the firing and arson started yesterday, people began running here and there and after it subsided, we found that 10 people from the relief camp had been missing. This morning, the two bodies were found and two others were found alive… Six people – three women and three children – are still missing and we are very afraid of where they might be or what might have happened to them” one of the residents said, as quoted by Indian Express.
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Monday’s incident was marked as the highest number of casualties in a single day this year during the ongoing conflict in the state. The attack came a day after a 31-year-old woman from the Hmar community was killed in an attack during an attack in her village on last Thursday. The Hmar groups have claimed that those killed on Monday were “village volunteers” who were “retaliating” against the woman’s killing.
