Fresh gunbattle between armed militants and security forces in Moreh

Guwahati: In a fresh bout of violence, heavy gunbattle broke out between security forces and militants in Manipur's Moreh, along the India-Myanmar border, on Monday.

Informing that heavily armed militants opened fire on a joint team of security forces, security sources said that forces have launched an operation to flush out militants who tried to ambush a patrolling team of Manipur police on Sunday night in ward no 9 of Moreh.

Security sources said that heavily armed militants on Monday opened fire on a joint team of security forces comprising the Assam Rifle and Border Security Forces which has launched an operation to flush out militants. The security forces also retaliated against the militants who are firing from the hill tops, security sources said, adding that militants are armed with sophisticated arms.

It is significant that gunbattle started on Sunday night after an ambush by the militants who hurled four to five bombs followed by intermittent gunfire on security forces in ward no 9 of Moreh.

The security forces on Sunday also retaliated and there were reports of casualties on both sides but the state home department officials were reluctant to confirm any deaths or injuries on either side. Security sources said that a counter-insurgency  operation launched by a combined team of the security forces was still going on.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Kuki Inpi Tengnoupal Kaikholal Haokip, an umbrella group for Kukis in the district, told reporters that the gunfight on Sunday began at 9 pm and no casualties have been reported.

It is significant that in an earlier incident on January 2, seven security personnel – including four Manipur police commandos and three Border Security Force (BSF) personnel – were injured during a search operation. On December 30, militants had attacked Manipur police commandos inside their barracks, by firing rocket-propelled grenades (RPG).

While Imphal-based media outlets had implicated the Kuki National Army (KNA), the Kuki National Army Burma (KNA-B) and the United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) in the December 30 incident, a body called the ‘Village Volunteers, Tengnoupal District (Eastern Zone)’ later issued its own “clarification” on such reports denying that the aforementioned groups were involved in the gunfight.

Village volunteers in the district have also called for the replacement of Manipur police with central paramilitary forces citing bias on the part of the state police commandos, the report in local newspapers of Manipur said.