Gunfights erupted overnight in areas where residents of the two communities live, despite security forces setting up a buffer zone to prevent escalation, officials said.
Post Date – 06:20 AM, Saturday – July 8
Imphal: Four people, including a Manipur police commando and a teenager, were killed when two warring communities clashed in the Kangwai district of Bishnupur district on Thursday night, officials said. They said gunfights erupted overnight in areas where residents of the two communities lived, despite security forces setting up a buffer zone to prevent an escalation.
Last night, mobs from the hillside tried to come down and burn some villages in the valley.
They said the mob gathered from outside the area and did not give in to demands from locals to return. Security forces responded in a targeted manner, preventing them from burning down any houses. However, some personnel from both sides opened fire on each other within the confrontation range of Kangvai, Songdo and Awang Lekhai villages, resulting in injuries to both sides and three deaths.
Although the shooting stopped in the early hours of Friday, mobs on the valley side continued to prevent security forces from stepping up operations in the area, saying senior officials had been working around the clock to restore peace to the area by engaging with both communities. However, sentiments continued to run high and intermittent shooting continued even during the day, officials said, adding that a police commando was fatally wounded Friday night.
The teenager was killed while fleeing in the Phoubakchao area.
Meanwhile, angry locals, mostly women, took to the streets of Morang to vent their anger over the firings. The shooting incident between two groups of armed men first took place at Awang Leikei and Kangwai in the Churandpur district near Phoubakchao at around 1:30 a.m., officials said. Additional columns have been deployed from other routes in response to tensions in the area. More than 120 people have been killed and more than 3,000 injured since racial violence erupted in the state on May 3, when a “tribal solidarity march” was organized in the mountains to protest the Meitei community’s claim to Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.
In addition to the Manipur police, some 40,000 central security personnel have been deployed to contain the violence and restore normalcy in the state. The Metai make up about 53% of Manipur’s population and live mainly in the Imphal Valley. The Naga and Kuki tribes make up another 40 percent of the population and live in the mountains.
