Assam Police on high alert after violence in Manipur’s Jiribam

Silchar/Imphal, Nov 14 (IANS) The Assam Police in Cachar district is on high alert after the escalating violence in the adjoining Jiribam district of Manipur.

Cachar District Superintendent of Assam Police Numal Mahatta said that in the wake of the unrest triggered by violent incidents in Manipur’s Jiribam district, round-the-clock patrolling is being conducted along the Assam-Manipur inter-state borders along the Cachar District.

The police officer said that riverine uninterrupted patrolling is also being conducted.

“We have taken all necessary precautionary measures following the violent situation and ethnic strife in Jiribam. In far-flung and remote areas where there is no connectivity, Assam police are patrolling there day and night. Manipur police are assisting us. Commando battalion is pressed for duty,” Mahatta told the media.

The district police chief said that so far there has been no flight of people from Jiribam to Assam territory.

Cachar police in a post on the X said: “Cachar Police conducted foot patrols, area domination and searches in Tupidhar along the Assam-Manipur border to prevent unauthorised entry and fostering regional stability through community engagement.”

“To combat rising tensions in Jiribam(Manipur), Cachar Police intensify security efforts along the Assam-Manipur border, conducting unwavering riverine patrols from Fulertal to Tupidhar along the Barak River,” the Cachar police said in another post.

Largely unaffected in the 18-month-long ethnic riot in most parts of Manipur, mixed-populated Jiribam witnessed a wave of violence after the killing of 59-year-old farmer Soibam Saratkumar Singh on June 6 this year.

The Jiribam violence led to around 1,500 people belonging to both Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities taking shelter at the homes of relatives and friends in two villages in the Cachar district of southern Assam.

Though most of the refugees subsequently returned to Jiribam, a few hundred Kuki-Zo-Hmar tribals still lived with their relatives in the Cachar district.

Manipur Police said that in the November 11 encounter with the CRPF 10 Kuki militants were killed and the militants also kidnapped 10 people, all inmates of a relief camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district’s Borobekra sub-division.

The police official said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians — Maibam Kesho Singh (75) and Laishram Barel (61) — were found.

He said that another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station while the six people – three children and three women — remained untraced so far.

During the past two weeks, farmers in a few districts of Manipur were unable to work in their paddy fields due to the firing of armed attackers from hilltops towards the low-lying fields.

Two women — Sapam Ongbi Sonia Devi, belonging to the Meitei community and Sangkim, belonging to the Hmar tribal community – were killed by the suspected armed attackers in the Bishnupur and Jiribam districts, respectively, last week.

The ethnic violence between the non-tribals Meiteis and tribal Kuki-Zo broke out in the northeastern state on May 3 last year after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised in the hill districts to protest the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

So far, over 230 people have been killed in the strife.

–IANS

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