Imphal: Suspected militants set a police post and several houses on fire in Manipur’s Jiribam district on Saturday, officials said. The militants set ablaze the Jiri police post located in Chotobekra area on the banks of Barak river around 12.30 a.m. on Friday night, officials said. Suspected militants from the hilly region took advantage of the darkness and carried out multiple attacks at Lamtai Khunou in Modhupur area of the district, around 220 km from the state capital Imphal.
The Jiribam district magistrate said several houses on the outskirts of Jiribam were set on fire, though the exact number could not be confirmed at this time. A commando contingent of Manipur Police was rushed from Imphal to Jiribam on Saturday morning to assist in the security operation against the militants, police said. Newly-elected Congress MP from Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat Angomcha Bimol Akoijam has urged the state government to protect the lives and properties of the people of Jiribam district. “I have spoken to the district officials of Jiribam,” Akoijam told reporters at a press conference here.
He said that additional security personnel have reached there. People living in the city are also being given security, but people living in the border areas of the city are not being given security. Officials said on Saturday that about 239 people were evacuated from their villages and sent to new camps set up in the sports complex of Jiri city after violence broke out in Jiribam district after the alleged killing of a person by militants. Most of them include women and children.
On June 6, the district administration had imposed indefinite curfew in Jiribam district following protests over the killing of a 59-year-old man by suspected militants. The killing in Jiribam district has triggered fresh ethnic violence here, although the area had remained unaffected till now. Jiribam has remained unaffected by the violence that has been going on in Manipur since May last year. Meitei, Muslim, Naga, Kuki and non-Manipuri people live here. More than 200 people have died and thousands have been rendered homeless in the ethnic violence that has been going on since May last year between the Meitei people living in the Imphal valley and the Kuki people living in the hill areas.
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