Imphal: As many as 11 people have been shot dead and the house of Union Minister RK Ranjan Singh was attacked by a mob of over 1,000 people in Manipur last night, in the latest incident of violence in the northeast state.
The mob managed to reach the minister's house at Kongba despite a curfew in Imphal and set it on fire.
Confirming the incident, a security personnel said that the mob threw petrol bombs from all directions during the attack on the minister's house.
"We couldn't prevent the incident as the mob was overwhelming and we couldn't control the situation. They threw petrol bombs coming in from all directions.. from the bye lane behind the building and from the front entrance. so we simply couldn't control the mob," L Dineshwor Singh, Escort Commander, has been quoted as saying by NDTV.
#BreakingA mob torched Union Minister of State for External Affairs RK Ranjan Singh's residence at Kongba in Imphal on Thursday late night. @MEAIndia @RanjanRajkuma11#ManipurViolence pic.twitter.com/eCb0cviESU— Oxomiya Jiyori 🇮🇳 (@SouleFacts) June 16, 2023
#BreakingA mob torched Union Minister of State for External Affairs RK Ranjan Singh's residence at Kongba in Imphal on Thursday late night. @MEAIndia @RanjanRajkuma11#ManipurViolence pic.twitter.com/eCb0cviESU
This is not the first attack on a minister. Earlier, the house of Manipur PWD Minister Konthoujam Govindas in Bishnupur district was vandalised by an irate mob on May 24.
Meanwhile, eleven people have been shot dead and 14 injured in a fresh outbreak of the ethnic violence. The latest killings come a little more than a month after an earlier bout of unrest that saw entire villages burned to the ground, killing dozens and leaving tens of thousands homeless, according to CNN.
Since then nearly 3 million people in the state have been largely cut off from the rest of the country, after the government blocked internet services and restricted travel in an effort to contain the violence.
In the latest wave of unrest, the violence has been so extreme that many bodies have been hard to identify, doctors and senior management officials at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) and Raj Medicity Hospital in the state’s capital Imphal told CNN.
“The bodies that have come in have not been in a good state. There were many cuts, wounds, and scratches all over,” the director of JNIMS, Dr. Deben, said. “We are still conducting a post-mortem and trying to confirm the identity of the last victim, but his face is badly mutilated.”
“The bodies that have come in have not been in a good state. There were many cuts, wounds, and scratches all over,” the director of JNIMS, Dr. Deben, said.
“We are still conducting a post-mortem and trying to confirm the identity of the last victim, but his face is badly mutilated.”
Manipur, a lush, hilly state which borders Myanmar, is home to an ethnically diverse group of Sino-Tibetan communities, each with their own language, culture and religion.
Like Kashmir in the north, it was once a princely state under British rule, and only incorporated into India in 1949, two years after the country gained independence.
Many within the state disagreed with that move and ever since then the region has grappled with violent insurgencies and ethnic conflicts that have resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries over the decades.
The latest clashes broke out after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.
The violence in Manipur was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations.
Meiteis are majority community in Manipur followed by tribal communities like Nagas and Kukis.
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