Day After Rocket Attack In Manipur, Six Killed In Fresh Violence (image-twitter/YS_Sheoran)

In the fresh violence that took place in Manipur’s Jiribam district, six people were killed, the police said. Five of them were killed in a gunfight between armed groups of the Meitei community and the hill-dominant Kuki tribes, reports have said.

Early in the morning, around 5:30 am, an elderly man identified as Yurembam Kulendra Singh was shot dead in his sleep at Nungchappi village. In a retaliatory gunfight, five insurgents- four from the Kuki community and one from the Meitei community were killed. Later, the violence escalated to Rashidpur where intermittent firing continued until 9:50 am.
As per an NDTV report, the groups called themselves “village defence volunteers”.

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Though 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”.

This new set of violence has come a day after an elderly man was killed and six others including a 13-year-old girl, were injured on Friday after a rocket launched by suspected militants exploded in Manipur’s Bishnupur district.

While speaking to the reporters, the Inspector General of Police K Kabib said, “. Yesterday, some Kuki militants attacked and fired at some fringe areas including the Bishnupur and Churachandpur border. In response to that, combined teams of the security forces conducted combing operations. They have destroyed two bunkers which were previously occupied by militants. After that, there was a long-range rocket fire from the hills by Kuki militants at Moirang, in which one senior citizen was killed and six others were injured.”

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He further added that the militants attacked a village in Jiribam, killing senior citizens.

So far, in the deathly ethnic violence that broke out between mainly Meiteis belonging to the Hindu faith and predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribes, at least 226 people have died and more than 59,000 have been displaced.
Even after a year, the violence broke out, the situation remains volatile.