Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 5: Three unarmed persons including a father-son duo were killed by militants in Bishnupur district on Friday night while another three sustained bullet wounds following heavy exchange of fire between state forces and armed men in the same district in fresh outbreak of violence in strife-torn Manipur.
Even as the 24-hour general strike called by the coordinating committee of 27 assembly constituencies paralysed normal life in Imphal valley with markets and business establishments remaining shut in almost all localities, the three were gunned down while they were sleeping and their bodies were later slashed with swords at Kwakta in the district by unidentified men, police said on Saturday morning, adding that the assailants came from Churachandpur.
According to witness accounts from locals, suspected militants raided Ukha Tampak village near Kwakta in Bishnupur around 2 am and started firing indiscriminately. Two men, father and son, and another person at the adjoining house, were murdered by the attackers. They were unarmed villagers guarding their houses.
The incident has caused great concern as the attackers were able to breach the buffer zone, between hills and valleys, manned by central security forces, police sources added. “The three used to stay in a relief camp but had returned to their residences at Kwakta on Friday after the situation improved,” police said.
Soon after the incident, an irate mob gathered at Kwakta and wanted to head towards Churachandpur but was stopped by security personnel, they said. Eyewitnesses said several houses were burnt at Ukha Tampak in Bishnupur district by a mob in retaliation of the murders.
In another incident, three persons including one policeman were injured following heavy exchange of fire between state forces and militants near Kwakta on Saturday morning, police said. “The policeman sustained splinter injuries on his face. All the three were taken to Raj Medicity in Imphal for treatment. They are out of danger,” they said.
Earlier the same day, a mob looted the armoury at the headquarters of the 2nd India Reserve Battalion (IRB) located at Naranseina in Bishnupur district, officials said. A police officer was killed in Imphal West, while arms and ammunition, including automatic guns, were looted in Bishnupur after mobs ransacked at least two security posts in the district on Thursday.
In Senjam Chirang in Imphal West, a Manipur police personnel was killed after being shot in the head by a sniper. A village volunteer was also injured in the gun battle after suspected militants opened fire in Koutruk and Senjam Chirang from the nearby hill ranges.
Over 25 people were injured in clashes as Army and RAF personnel fired tear gas shells in Kangvai and Phougakchao areas in Bishnupur later in the day to stop processions from proceeding to a proposed burial site, violating restrictions on gatherings. The Kuki-Zomi organisation, Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, had planned the burial of 35 people, who were killed in ethnic riots in the state at a site in Haolai Khopi village of Churachandpur, resulting in tension in many districts.
Across Imphal valley, women protesters came out on the streets and burnt tyres to block the movement of vehicles. In the wake of renewed violence, the district administration clamped curfew from 10.30 a.m. in the twin Imphal districts.
“Instead of curfew relaxation from 5am to 6pm in the twin Imphal districts, it has now been shortened to 5 a.m. to 10.30 a.m.,” an official said, adding fierce gunfights have been reported in Kwakta and its neighbouring areas since morning.
In a statement, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) asked the state government on the steps being taken to stem the violence. “The ITLF would like to know what government agencies are doing to address the security threat posed by frequent looting of guns and ammunition by mobs and why security forces are still unable to safeguard government-issued weapons three months into the ethnic conflict in Manipur,” it said. According to the forum, more than 4,000 weapons and lakhs of ammunition were “looted” from different police stations and armouries by mobs in Imphal and the surrounding valley in May.
It said if the central government and security forces do not take cognisance of the risk posed by the circulation of such huge quantities of arms and act to retrieve the weapons, “we are afraid that Manipur could witness a bloodbath, the kind of which the country has not seen in decades.”
The Manipur ruling BJP MLA Rajkumar Imo Singh has hit out at central security forces, claiming there were huge security lapses in the militant attack in Bishnupur district that killed three people earlier in the day, and demanded action against the paramilitary force personnel for their “negligence in duty.”
Rajkumar Imo Singh, who is also the son-in-law of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, said despite the presence of a massive number of paramilitary personnel, the militants from other districts came to the village and brutally killed the three people.
“The so-called paramilitary forces on duty in the village need to be suspended. We have been writing letters and memorandum regularly to the Union Home Minister (Amit Shah) that certain security forces are creating uneasiness between the people and the state,” he said, adding that “a few units” of the security forces are creating problems.
If the proper action is not taken immediately, peace and normalcy would not be restored in the state, the BJP MLA said. “Certain proactive measures need to be taken immediately, and the Chief Security Advisor must look into these aspects. There are people behind the militants to create trouble. Who is supplying arms and ammunition to them (militants). Central government must answer these questions. There is violence going on for more than three months. Central government must take certain stringent measures to stop violence, otherwise the situation would go out of control. Manipur needs peace and normalcy,” he added.
The Manipur Police on Friday said joint forces conducted search operations in vulnerable and fringe areas of the strife-torn state and destroyed seven illegal bunkers after fresh violence broke out across various districts.
The neighbouring state Mizoram and its chief minister Zoramthanga, a former extremist hardened by guerilla warfare, and also the president of the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) has much in stake in Manipur. The extremist outfit-turned political party MNF had suffered some reverses in April in the hands Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) which took away all the 11 seats from the MNF in the Lunglei municipal council elections in central Mizoram.
Zoramthanga is trying for a comeback with the support of the Kuki-Zomi tribals who are a dominant force in the neighbouring Manipur and have much in common with the Mizos. The Lunglei loss, eight months ahead of the Assembly polls later this year, was an indication for the MNF and Zoramthanga, battling a fiscal crisis and charges of nepotism, that the 2023 polls may not be a cakewalk. And then, Manipur happened.
Ethnic affiliation is said to have made Zoramthanga vocal about the Kuki-Meitei ethnic conflict in Manipur that killed some 150 people and displaced about 60,000 since May 3. Zoramthanga is a Mizo, the dominant community of Mizoram ethnically related to the Kukis and Zomis of Manipur, the Chins of Myanmar, and the Kuki-Chins of Bangladesh. They belong to the greater Zo community, sharing the same ancestry, culture, and tradition and speak almost the same language.
People aware of such ethnic bonding among indigenous communities in the northeast were not surprised when Mizoram protested the violence in Manipur, particularly after a video showing two Kuki women paraded naked in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley and allegedly raped went viral in July, two months after it took place on May 4.
Zoramthanga took the lead in expressing the Mizo angst against the alleged ethnic cleansing of the Kuki-Zo people in Manipur and supporting the demand for a separate administration for them. He tweeted: “…There is bloodshed all over. With no iota of doubt, those victims are my kin, my own blood. Should we quieten the situation by just being silent?” There was another reason: more than 12,500 displaced Kukis from Manipur had taken shelter in Mizoram, adding to some 40,000 others who fled the conflicts in Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Zoramthanga stole a march over his rivals in capitalising on Manipur’s misery, reportedly keeping the Assembly elections in mind. He won many hearts by walking along with protestors on the streets of Aizawl. It inevitably drew comparisons with the response of other parties to the Manipur issue. Zoramthanga did not just grab the opportunity that Manipur presented him. Holding his Manipur counterpart N. Biren Singh responsible for the ethnic violence, he expressed solidarity with the Kukis of Manipur, thereby – as his critics say – increasing the chances of the MNF to retain power in Mizoram.
Biren Singh asked Zoramthanga not to “interfere” in Manipur, expressing his disappointment at his Mizoram counterpart’s participation in a rally where abusive slogans were shouted against him. “A CM should not interfere in other States’ affairs. I cannot meddle in something happening in Assam or Mizoram without the chief ministers’ consent,” Singh said.