New Delhi: In a fresh round of violence in Manipur’s Imphal, over 60 people, including policemen, were injured Wednesday as a mob protesting against the police’s inaction in the alleged abduction and murder of two teenagers from the valley turned violent.
The crowd, including students, allegedly assaulted a policeman and took away his weapon, attacked government offices and the house of a political leader, set a police gypsy on fire and breached barricades. This has further deteriorated the law-and-order situation in the state that has been seeing ethnic clashes between the tribal Kuki and non-tribal Meitei communities since early May.
“Various forms of violent agitations are being carried out, including demonstrations and rallies. The mob tried to set the BJP office in Thoubal on fire, attacked police outposts using petrol bombs, tried to set the DC’s (deputy commissioner) office in Imphal on fire, pelted stones and used catapults to attack personnel,” an intelligence source told ThePrint.
Following the violence, the curfew, which had previously been relaxed, was imposed again in the valley, and mobile data services, restored Saturday after almost five months, were suspended for five days once again.
“The protests were carried out in several locations in the valley and, as they turned violent, the security forces used minimum force to control the crowd. The unruly crowd, however, attacked policemen, vandalised public property and thus had to be repelled by firing tear gas shells,” a senior police officer said.
The police added that the mob used “iron pieces and stones against security forces”.
“The crowd was extremely violent. Manipur Police condemns such action and will take stern steps to deal with such miscreants. Combing operations are being carried out for recovery of arms and catching miscreants,” the officer said.
The Manipur Police have registered a series of cases against the “miscreants” and carried out raids to recover the stolen weapons, sources said.
A few days after mobile internet was restored in Manipur, photos of the two Meitei students, who went missing on 6 July after they left their home on the pretext of going for tuition classes, surfaced on social media.
One of the photos shows the two students sitting in the grassy compound of what appears to be a makeshift jungle camp of an armed group. Two men with guns stand behind them. In the next photo, their bodies are seen slumped on the ground.
Soon after they had gone missing, the families of Hemanjit Vietimboy, 19, and a 17-year-old girl approached the police multiple times as well as searched for leads themselves. However, each time, they were turned away by the police asking to wait for the “situation to get normal”, ThePrint had reported earlier.
Soon after their photos went viral, the Manipur Government said that the case had already been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and that the investigation is ongoing.
An additional team of six senior officers from the CBI, including a special director, one joint director and four others were sent to Manipur to “supervise” the investigation in the said case, sources said.
The case, however, has sparked controversy, with Meiteis in Imphal accusing the police of not acting against the Kukis and demanding justice for the families of the teenagers.
Deteriorating law & order affecting investigation
In an earlier incident on 21 September, a large gathering of locals armed with sticks and sling shots gathered outside police stations across five districts in Imphal valley to protest against the arrest of five Meiteis who were allegedly caught roaming around in police uniform with sophisticated weaponry on 16 September.
The crowd vandalised property, breached barricades and also attempted to set houses of policemen on fire. Tensions escalated as the personnel, including the local police, the riot control force and the Assam Rifles lobbed tear gas shells and used lathi charge to disperse the crowd.
Manipur has been caught in a cycle of ethnic violence since 3 May. Since then, more than 200 people have been killed, over 1,200 left grievously injured and over 50,000 forced to abandon their homes, according to the police data seen by ThePrint. The challenge of restoring law and order continues to loom large.
Amid such large-scale violence and registration of over 6,500 cases, only 280 arrests have been made, shows the data. Investigations in most cases have made no headway, hampered by the resistance and aggressive local opposition from the locals, exacerbating the already precarious situation.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
Also read: Manipur violence: 5,107 arson cases, 71 murders but police yet to start probe in most