GUWAHATI: One person was killed while another was injured in fresh violence that erupted in Manipur’s Bishenpur district bordering the hill district of Churachandpur on Wednesday.
The miscreants torched some abandoned houses of one community at Tronglaobi village on Tuesday night. When members of the affected community retaliated by burning down the abandoned houses of another community at Gelmol, an adjoining village of Tronglaobi, suspected militants opened fire.
A man identified as Toijam Chandramani was hit by a bullet. He succumbed to his injuries on the way to a hospital. The deceased is said to be an inmate of a relief camp at Moirang in Bishenpur.
Tension flared up in parts of Imphal Valley after the incident, prompting the authorities to withdraw the relaxation of curfew from Bishenpur as well as Imphal East and Imphal West districts.
According to reports reaching here, women belonging to the Meitei community briefly blocked an army convoy headed towards Churachandpur on Wednesday morning. The protestors alleged army and paramilitary forces were not taking any action against the Kuki militants despite their alleged involvement in the violence.
Shyamkumar Ayekpak, who is a volunteer at a relief camp set up at the Moirang Multipurpose Higher Secondary School in Bishenpur, told this newspaper the inmates are highly stressed and agitated.
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“Their houses have been burned down and the government has not come up with any solution whatsoever so far. They are getting agitated and at one point, it will not be possible to control them. They want to go out and fight,” Ayekpak said.
Thousands of displaced Meiteis of Churachandpur and other adjoining villages are lodged at various relief camps in Moirang. They are being fed by civil society organisations and locals.
The violence in Manipur broke out on May 3 after a “Tribal Solidarity March” which was organised by a tribal students’ union in all 10 tribal-majority hill districts to oppose the move for the inclusion of Meiteis – the state’s largest community – in the Scheduled Tribes list.
More than 70 lives were lost and over 1,700 houses were burned down by the mobs in various parts of the state. Curfew is imposed in the affected districts while internet services have remained suspended.