Unarmed villagers fighting militants in Bishnupur villages
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, May 11 2023:
Even as the gov-ernment has been giving assurance to work for im-proving the situation and controlling violence, there are still some villages in the foothills, which are facing constant attacks from armed Kuki militants with the lo-cal youth fighting against all odds to keep their properties safe.
Kumbi Haotak Tampha Khunou is a Meetei village located in Bishnupur dis-trict adjoining Churachan-dpur district.
Since May 3, the village has been facing armed attacks from Kuki militants.
Despite the odds, the unarmed villagers are still holding their ground to defend their houses and properties.
In order to give a fighting chance to the villag-ers, the youth are spending nights in the open ground to check intrusion of militants.
During a visit to the village on Wednesday, an elderly villager told The People's Chronicle that they are peace loving people but cannot profess serenity when their houses are burnt.
While confiding that the youth are maintaining vigil to protect the village and their properties, he said: "This is not a relief camp but a camp for the local youths to keep vigil against the attackers, ' while pointing to a makeshift shelter in the open field.
Police came to the village once and asked the youth to return home.
However, as no police personnel are deployed in the area, the youths are holding their ground there.
The situation is no different at Saiton village in Bishnupur district too as the locals have established sentry points to guard the village.
A village elder said that Saiton has been facing numerous at-tacks from the armed Kuki militants as it borders Chu-rachandpur district.
How-ever, the village youths are doing whatever they could to defend the village, he said while drawing attention of the government to deploy some security personnel to give some protection.
On the other hand, TPC found that a child has died due to an ailment in a relief camp opened at Ithai Keithel.
As more displaced people are evacuated from Chura-chandpur district, new relief camps are being set up in different parts of Bishnupur district to provide shelter to the displaced people.
Local volunteers managing the relief camps sought dona-tion of mats, mattress and wide clothes like shawl and bed-sheets so that they could provide convenient sleep-ing space to the displaced people, especially children, pregnant women, elders and ailing persons.
Langjing GP pradhan M Romen Singh and YCWO Heinoupok visited the relief camps in Moirang and Kum-bi areas on Wednesday and donated essential materials.
According to the pradhan, the relief materials were crowd-sourced from the local residents of Heinoupok and Langjing GP area.
Meanwhile, Peace Com-mittee Nambol Kendra un-der the aegis of education minister Th Basantakumar brought around 150 people evacuated from Churachan-dpur district to a relief camp set up at SAI Complex, Utlou, on Wednesday.