IMPHAL, JUNE 10: Eminent Manipuri playwright and social worker, Arambam Somorendra was today shot dead by two suspected underground activists here.Official sources said the assailants shot at Somorendra from a point blank range at a seminar, a few minutes after Manipur Arts and Culture Minister, W Thoiba Singh left the venue after inaugurating it.Somorendra, 64, received two bullet wounds - one in the head and another on right shoulder - and died on way to the Jawaharlal Nehru hospital, sources said.The motive behind the killing was not immediately known but police suspected hands of a valley-based underground outfit, sources said. Somorendra was once a senior member of the now banned United National Liberation Front (UNLF) but he severed links with it two and half decades ago, sources added.He is survived by his wife and three sons and a daughter.A recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award (1995) for his novel, Leipaklei, Somorendra had written several plays and novels. Leipaklei deals with the problems faced by a neglected woman in Manipuri society.Family sources said cremation would take place tomorrow.
