Fresh violence claims 3 lives in Manipur

Kolkata: Fresh violence has left three persons dead on Friday night in Manipur which has been reeling under sporadic ethnic clashes between Meitei and Kuki communities, leading to a heavy deployment of Army and other security forces across the North Eastern state in the last three days.

According to defence sources, Churachandpur, which is a Kuki-dominated district in Manipur, witnessed fresh rounds of violence after remaining peaceful for the last 18 hours.

At Changpikot, inter-community clashes between Kukis and Meitis occured late on Friday night. 3 persons, all being males, of one community were killed, sources revealed on Saturday.

In another incident, a violent crowd of approximately 400 people surrounded the Army and Assam Rifles (AR) columns in Lamka village in Churachandpur, another source said.

The security forces, owing to violent and life threatening actions by the mob, opened fire as a last resort. Eye witnesses said that two people were injured in the shooting and were immediately evacuated by the violent crowd themselves.

So far 16,000 people who were stranded in the state have been rescued by the security forces while the deployment of Army and AR columns have gone up to 125 in the trouble-hit areas.

While the security forces are doing everything they can in the kinetic operations domain, a need for immediate political outreach initiative at the political level towards communities virtually at war with each other has become prominent to restore peace.