GUWAHATI: A farmer sustained gunshot wounds while two vehicles were torched as the violence in Manipur continued.
The farmer was shot while he was at his field at Phubala in the Meitei-majority Bishnupur district on Saturday morning. He was admitted to a hospital.
Sporadic incidents of firing are being reported from areas between Kuki villages in the hills and Meitei villages in the valley almost every day even after the government created buffer zones to avoid the clashes.
Official sources said a mob torched two vehicles near the Kangla fort in Imphal on Friday night. It also tried to snatch weapons from the police but the personnel thwarted the attempt by firing shots. No casualty was reported. Later, the Army was called in and it dispersed the mob.
Another mob had gathered at Palace Compound in Imphal in the wee hours of Saturday but the Army and the Rapid Action Force dispersed it.
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Four persons, including a police commando and a teenager, were killed in two separate firing incidents at a place on the Churachandpur-Bishnupur border on Friday. Official sources said two columns of the Army and the Assam Rifles moved to the site on Friday night to stop the violence.The state government constituted seven teams of ministers and MLAs for overseeing the supervision and management of relief camps. Interestingly, there is no Kuki legislator in the team.
The teams have altogether 35 legislators – 25 Meiteis, eight Nagas and two Meitei Pangals (Meitei Muslims).
After the violence broke out on May 3, all 10 Kuki MLAs, including two ministers, demanded “separate administration” for the community.
Meanwhile, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) expressed dismay that FIRs were lodged against two Kuki-Zo leaders and an intellectual for their comments in the media on the violence.
Based on complaints, the chief judicial magistrate, Imphal East, issued notices to Kuki Women’s Forum convenor Mary Grace Zou, Kuki People’s Alliance co-founder Wilson L Hangsing and Prof Kham Khan Suan Hausing of Hyderabad University.
“The accusations…are clearly an attempt to silence tribals who are speaking on behalf of their community. It is an attack on their right to freedom of speech,” the ITLF said.