22-year-old shot dead as security forces, protesters come face to face in Manipur’s Jiribam

The incident took place near Jiribam police station in the heart of the town, which has been gripped by tension and arson since the recovery of bodies suspected to be of six women and children from a Meitei family, who had allegedly been abducted by militants during an attack in Borobekra, around 30 km from the town.

On Monday, a body was recovered from the Barak River, which has not been identified, but is suspected to be the last member of the family of six. Earlier, on Saturday, the police had also recovered the body of a 27-year-old Kuki-Zo man in Jiribam. With Sunday night’s incident, a total of 21 people have died in the small district of Jiribam within a span of 11 days.

Charred remains of commodities at BJP leader and Manipur minister Govindas Konthoujam’s residence, which was set on fire by some miscreants, at Ningthoukhong in Bishnupur district. (PTI)

The NIA on Monday took over the investigation into three of these cases – two relating to the incident on November 11, in which armed Hmar men, suspected to be militants, attacked the relief camp and CRPF post in Borobekra, resulting in eight inmates of the relief camp being killed and 10 of the attackers being gunned down by security forces. The third relates to the incident that set off this spiral of violence – the November 7 attack on Zairawn village near Jiribam town by armed people from the Meitei community, allegedly members of the Arambai Tenggol group, in which a 31-year-old Hmar woman was killed and set on fire. The police complaint based on which the FIR was registered also alleges rape.

Until June this year, Jiribam had held out from the violence that had engulfed the rest of the state since May last year. Even after that, the district has seen attempts and understandings to ease tensions, but it has become the epicentre of the violence in the state.