Manipur’s Meitei community holds a candlelight vigil in Imphal seeking safe release of hostages
Imphal/New Delhi:
The bodies of a woman and two children were brought to a morgue in Assam’s Silchar on Friday, amid tension in neighbouring Manipur’s Jiribam district after three women and three children were taken hostage by suspected Kuki militants on Monday.
Last night, sources at the morgue in Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMHC) who saw the bodies told NDTV that the bodies of three women were brought there. They said initial examination of the bodies indicated they were adults.
This morning, the sources have confirmed two of the bodies are of children and one is of a woman. The corpses had bloated due to some decomposition, they said.
The bodies are yet to be identified.
Laisharam Herojit, a low-level worker in the state government, whose two children, wife, mother-in-law and wife’s sister were among the hostages, told NDTV this morning that he is yet to see the bodies. All are from the Meitei community.
The morgue is at Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMHC), some 50 km from Jiribam. The bodies were brought to the morgue at 7 pm on Friday, sources said, adding autopsies of bodies found in Jiribam are done in SMHC due to lack of proper infrastructure in the town.
The women and children were taken hostage by a group of suspected Kuki militants from Jiribam’s Bokobera neighbourhood while another group of militants were engaged in a gunfight with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), sources have said.
Ten of the suspected Kuki militants were shot dead in the encounter.
Mr Herojit told NDTV on Wednesday a friend of his wife saw them being taken away on a boat by armed people on Monday. He said he got a call from his wife when shooting and arson broke out in Borobekra on Monday. The call got disconnected and when he dialled her back, he found the phone was switched off.
The CRPF camp and the police station in Jiribam’s Borobekra are less than 1 km from the Barak River.
“She was crying on the phone. She said they were surrounded by a lot of armed people. The call got disconnected, after which I called her back, but the mobile was switched off. My mother-in-law’s phone was also switched off. About an hour later – and we had been searching for a while – a Bengali friend of my wife told us she saw them being taken away in a boat,” Mr Herojit said on Wednesday.
The Kuki tribes have claimed those who were killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”, an allegation that CRPF and police sources have denied.
The security forces have released what they claimed were weapons – AK and INSAS assault rifles and a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher – recovered from the encounter site, and visuals of police vehicles with numerous bullet holes.