Guwahati: After a massive gunbattle between two groups over a land dispute, a mob stormed into a police station and looted arms and ammunition in Manipur’s Ukhrul town. The police said on Thursday that three persons, including two civilians and a jawan of the Manipur Rifles, were killed and 20 others injured in a gunfight that broke out between two groups on Wednesday over cleaning a disputed land in the town as part of “Swachhata Abhiyan”. The police station was attacked as the violence was going on.
Tension had escalated between the residents of two villages in Ukhrul over a long-standing land dispute. The gunfight was triggered after residents of Hunphun village reportedly interrupted students from Hungpung, who were cleaning an area on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. Members of the two sides belong to the Tangkhul Naga community but are residents of different villages, security sources said.
In the wake of growing tensions, the administration had imposed prohibitory orders and suspended mobile Internet services in the town after the clash between two groups of the Naga community.
Saying that the mob decamped with arms and ammunition, the security sources said: “After violence broke out in Ukhrul town, a mob comprising mostly of youths stormed into the police station located at Wino Bazar and decamped with police weapons.”
Pointing out that the police had launched an operation to recover the looted weapons, the security sources said they are yet to ascertain the number and types of weapons looted.
The sources, claiming anonymity, however, said the looted weapons had included AK-47s and INSAS rifles.
The police said 10 of the critically injured have been referred to a hospital in Imphal while others are being treated in the Ukhrul district hospital.
Three Tangkhul Naga legislators have, meanwhile, appealed to the villagers to keep peace and “resolve the issue amicably through dialogue”.
The security sources said there have been several instances of looting of arms and ammunition in trouble-torn Manipur but it was for the first time that a police station was stormed in a Naga-majority area.
