Nov 08, 2024 01:34 PM IST
Police confirmed there was a gunfight, and houses were burnt but said that they are yet to find the woman’s body as it was taken by Jiribam’s civil society organisations
A tribal woman was allegedly shot and then burnt to death by militants on Thursday night during an attack at a Hmar tribal village in Manipur’s Jirbam district, according to the district’s civil society organisations.
Police confirmed there was a gunfight, and houses were burnt but said that they are yet to find the woman’s body as it was taken by Jiribam’s civil society organisations.
Security forces and forensic experts are at the Zairon village where the incident took place.
The Indigenous Tribal Advocacy Committee (ITAC) of Pherzawl and Jirbam district issued a statement confirming the incident and identified the deceased woman as Zosangkim(38), a mother of three.
The ITAC accused Meitei radical group Arambai Tenggol of first launching an attack at the village around 9pm and then burning the houses.
Zosangkim, according to ITAC members, was a homemaker, her husband works at a rubber plantation.
A senior government officer from Jiribam, who asked not to be named, said, “There was a gunfight, and the village was attacked last night. Around ten houses were burnt. The villagers informed us about the death of a Hmar community woman. They have taken the body. Our forensic teams are on the spot. There is no violence at the moment.”
One ITAC official who asked not to be named said that the Zairon village where the attack took place is about 7km from the main town of Jiribam and has around 500 Hmar residents.
Also Read: Manipur: Miscreants attack villages, plant bomb; Gunfight erupts in Imphal East
“ITAC took the body because Meitei residents in Jiribam town would not have allowed it to be taken to the hospital there. Also, ITAC does not trust the state government so the body will not be handed to them. In the past too, postmortem of tribal people was conducted in Silchar because it could not be done in Jiribam which is under the state administration. The bodies were then taken to Churachandpur directly through different routes by avoiding Jiribam,” he said.
Over the last three weeks, different parts of Manipur are again reporting incidents of gunfights and attacks.
Jiribam, near the Manipur-Assam border has been tense since July last year after clashes between Kuki and Meitei started in the district. The Borobekra police station was attacked by militants on October 18 last month. On Wednesday, the Koutruk village was again attacked by Kuki militants from the jungles in the hills of Kangpokpi.
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