Manipur violence: Mother, son among three feared killed in mob attack on ambulance

The incident took place in Imphal West’s Iroisemba area, under the jurisdiction of Lamphel police station. A senior officer from the station said the vehicle was charred around 7 pm Sunday.

“All we could recover were some bones from inside the vehicle,” he said. An FIR, which also includes sections pertaining to murder, was registered by police at the station that night.

The incident took place more than a month after clashes between Meiteis and Kukis first began on May 3 in the state, which has been on edge ever since.

According to residents of Kangchup Chingkhok village in Kangpokpi district, the three are Meena Hangsing, her son Tomshing – who they said was below age 7 – and Meena’s relative Lydia Lourembam.

The Kangchup area has several Kuki villages and is on Kangpokpi district’s border with Imphal West, close to the Meitei village of Phayeng. The area has been seeing heavy exchange of fire in the second wave of violence across the state since May 27.

According to Gin Hangsing, a relative of the victims and a resident of the village, they were heading to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences after Tomshing was injured with a bullet injury to the head when firing took place in the area on Sunday.

“The women and children of our village had been staying at an Assam Rifles outpost nearby for the past month while the men have been doing village defence work. On Sunday, Tomshing was shot in the head from afar – it could have been a stray bullet or aimed at him, we don’t know,” he said.

This led to panic in the family, and they took a decision to move him to RIMS in Imphal West.

Another relative, Champi Hangsing, said the family drew confidence from the fact that both Meena and Lydia were Meitei. “They thought that since they are Metiei, nothing will happen to them as they travel through the valley. They left in three vehicles – the ambulance, and two vehicles with Manipur police personnel who escorted them,” he said.

An Assam Rifles spokesperson, while denying that Assam Rifles were a part of the effort to move them to the hospital, stated that the two women and the child were escorted by Manipur police personnel.

A male nurse, who was accompanying the three persons in the ambulance, said: “I got a call from the proprietor of our company to pick up a patient from the Assam Rifles post at Kangchup. I, along with a driver, rushed to evacuate the patient. We were told they were Meiteis. As soon as we reached there, we picked up two ladies and a boy who had a head injury. His condition was serious. On our way to the hospital, we were escorted by the district police.”

He said they had already been stopped a few times before they reached Iroisemba. “When we reached Iroisemba, we were stopped by a mob and totally surrounded. The driver and I were pulled out of the vehicle and taken to a club nearby. The police were outnumbered. They did not fire to disperse the crowd. It was around 6.30 pm. We were kept at a club for about two hours,” he said.

Imphal West SP Ibomcha Singh did not respond to calls and messages seeking a comment.