Paramilitary CRPF Soldier Killed In Action In Manipur’s Jiribam Ambush By Suspected Insurgents

Imphal/New Delhi:

A soldier of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was killed in action after a joint patrol with the state police was ambushed by suspected insurgents in Manipur’s Jiribam district. Two police commandos were injured.

The police said the joint patrol came under heavy fire from the suspected insurgents in the district bordering Assam. The CRPF soldier was walking near a patrol SUV when the suspected insurgents opened fire.

Visuals of the ambush site shows the SUV with several bullet holes and a shattered rear windshield. Two police commandos who were inside the vehicle were hit.

“We returned effective fire. The insurgents took cover of the forest and ran away. A combing operation is going on,” a senior police officer told NDTV on phone from Jiribam, 220 km from the state capital Imphal.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh in a post on X condemned the attack by who he called “suspected Kuki militants”.

Before today’s ambush, tension in Jiribam had been high in recent weeks following clashes between the Meitei community and the Hmar tribes.

The district didn’t see violence for over a year since Meitei-Kuki ethnic clashes began in May 2023; however, clashes erupted in Jiribam last month, forcing over a thousand people from both the communities to live in relief camps, some in neighbouring Assam.

Manipur’s second lifeline National Highway 37 which connects Imphal with Assam’s Cachar passes through Jiribam. The other lifeline that connects Manipur with the rest of the country is National Highway 2, which remains blocked in Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi district. This highway goes to Assam via Nagaland. The Kuki tribes also allege the Meitei community has blocked all essential items and cargo trucks from going to the hill areas where they live.

The ethnic violence between the valley-dominant Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

Armed people on both sides call themselves “village defence volunteers”, a definition of the belligerents that has become the most controversial since nothing stops these “volunteers” from killing people under the insurance provided by “in self-defence”.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the nearly two dozen tribes that share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administrative carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.