Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 31: Several commandos of the Manipur police were injured after a team of Manipur Police commandos was ambushed by suspected insurgents while on their way to a border town where a senior police officer was shot dead on Tuesday morning, the police said.
The team of the police commandos was sent as reinforcement after some extremists gunned down a sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) in the India-Myanmar border town of Moreh, about 115 kilometres from the state capital city of Imphal, on Tuesday.
Chingtham Anand Kumar, the SDPO, was on duty overseeing the cleaning of the grounds of a school when suspected Kuki militants opened fire on him. He succumbed to his injuries at a local primary health centre. The school ground was being cleared for the construction of a helipad jointly by the State police and the Border Security Force, officials said.
Following the incident, the team of police commandos was rushed to the town when they were ambushed on way, about 10 km short of Tengnoupal district. Troops of the Assam Rifles rushed to the ambush site and rescued the police commandos, government sources said. Many have been taken to hospital.
While the distance is not much on paper for a highway on the plains, the Imphal-Moreh route has many hills, jungles and hairpin bends that significantly raise the risk of ambush by insurgents, sources said. The Manipur Police sent the commando reinforcements to Moreh after security forces started an operation to neutralise the suspected insurgent sniper who killed the police officer, sources said.
Manipur Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh has vowed action against the extremists. Taking to social media, Mr. Singh said the killers would be brought to justice.
Kukis are in a majority in Moreh and the incident followed the demand of some organisations for the removal of the State forces from there. The incident led to the Manipur Cabinet conducting an emergency meeting on the law-and-order situation. It noted that the extremists struck when both sides (Kuki and Meitei communities) of the ethnic conflict were exercising restraint and peace could be maintained for almost months.
“While a sense of normalcy was slowly settling in, an MPS officer has been killed today in unprovoked firing by armed Kuki militants…” an official statement after the Cabinet meeting said. The Cabinet approved ex-gratia of ₹50 lakh and a suitable government job to the next of kin of the slain police officer. It directed the forces to launch a joint operation in Moreh and adjoining areas to nab the culprits.
Apart from deciding to rush additional state forces to Moreh, the Cabinet decided that no illegal armed personnel shall be permitted in or around Moreh, considering the strategic position of the town under India’s Act East Policy.
The Cabinet further noted that an organisation named World Kuki-Zo Intellectual Council issued a press release on October 24 calling upon the Kuki-Zo community to maintain sufficient stocks of their arms and ammunitions for facing another war before the harvesting season in November.
“It is further informed that the youth volunteers would be the ones going to face the war on the frontlines, and that its national army/UG groups will join the youth volunteers only in critical situations, citing that this would be because Kuki National Army/UG groups would not be able to join the war freely in view of SoO (suspension of operations) agreement,” the government statement said.
The unprecedented attack on the helipad project this morning and the subsequent ambush marked a sharp increase in hostilities between the security forces and insurgents amid the semblance of hard-won normalcy in ethnic violence-hit Manipur.
A small squad of Manipur Police commandos who have been stationed in Moreh since the May 3 violence is being bolstered with reinforcements now. Sending the Border Security Force (BSF) and police personnel to the border town, however, has not been easy due to roadblocks by miscreants, sources said, adding the need for a larger helipad was felt and so a decision to build it was taken.
The new helipad is being built jointly by the state and the BSF. This will be the third helipad in Moreh. The two other helipads are under the Assam Rifles, whose operational control is with the army. The state forces and the BSF are making the new helipad for their own exclusive use to transport police and paramilitary jawans to Moreh from other parts of Manipur, since the road to Moreh is blocked by miscreants at many places and there is a high risk of ambush, as had happened on Tuesday. The insurgents want to stop the new helipad from being made operational, the government sources said.