BSF soldier dies, AR duo hurt in attack by Kuki militants
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 06 2023: One soldier of the Border Security Force (BSF) was killed and two Assam Rifles personnel injured when suspected Kuki militants attacked a joint team of state and central security forces on Tuesday at Serou village in Kakching district.

The attack by suspected Kuki militants on the security forces came after series of attacks on innocent civilians in Serou area since May 28 during which hundreds of houses, including the Sugnu MLA's private residence, also were torched.

The deceased BSF soldier belonged to 169 Bn currently stationed at Practical High School, Serou while the two AR soldiers are from the 37 AR, also deployed at Serou.

The deceased BSF soldier identified as Constable (082010906) Ranjit Yadav was from West Bengal.

Ranjit Yadav suffered a fatal bullet wound on the chest and succumbed to injury at Evan hospital, Ka-kching at about 7am Tuesday.

The injured AR personnel are identified as Rifleman (G/5002006) DK Gogoi from Arunachal Pradesh and Rifleman (G/5000257) TK Ding Simte of New Lamka, Churachandpur district.

Both of them have been airlifted to military hospital at Mantripukhri for treatment.

According to sources, suspected Kuki mil-itants attacked the 169 BSF post at Serou at about 4am Tuesday which led to retaliatory firing by the latter during which Constable Ranjit Yadav was hit.

In the exchange of the fierce gunfight between the combined team of BSF and Manipur police soldiers of 37 AR deployed nearby were caught in the crossfire resulting in injuries of the two soldiers.

Meanwhile, Ranjit Yadav's body has been flown to his native state West Bengal after highest honour was piad to him at Imphal airport.

Chief minister N Biren, cabinet min-isters, security advisor Kuldiep Singh, DGP Rajiv Singh and senior police officials paid their last respect to the martyred soldier.

The chief minister even joined in carrying the lifeless body of Ranjit.

On other hand, four youth suffered in-juries in 'pipe bomb' attack by Kuki mil-itants at Serou Mamang Leikai at about 5pm Monday while another youth who fell down a pitch was found dead on Tuesday morning.

The deceased has been identified as Laishram Binod, 26 son of Jane of Wangjing Hodamba Awang Leikai and his body has been deposited at JNIMS morgue.

In connection with the Serou firing in-cidents, PRO IGAR (South) informed that combined security team has been conduct-ing area domination operation in Sugnu and Serou area since the past 48 hours.

Additional troops too have been deployed in the area to prevent unwanted incident.

According to the PRO, combined security team comprising of AR, BSF and state police had gun-fight with insurgents on June 5 and 6.In the gun-fight on June 6, one BSF Jawan was killed while two AR soldiers got injured.

Both the injured were airlifted by Helicopter to Mantripukhri, the PRO said, adding 'inputs indicate some casualties to insurgents and are bein& verified on ground'.

The PRO further said area domination operation by the combined team led to the recovery of two AK series rifles, one 51 mm mortar shell, two carbines and some ammunition.

According to defence offi-cials, a combing operation was launched at Serou in Kakching on Monday night and continued till Tuesday morning, when suspected Kuki militants fired at the combined security forces and claimed the life of Ran-jit Yaday.

Mention may be made the Ranjit Yadav is the second Pa-ra-military personnel killed in the ongoing violence in Ma-nipur, where over 100 people have been killed and over 320 others injured after the ethnic strife broke out on May 3.On May 10, Assam Rifles rifleman Alok Rao sustained gunshots wounds during an operation in Kangpokpi district and suc-cumbed to injury at Command Hospital in Kolkata on May17.Meanwhile, the BSF, ex-pressing their grief and con-dolences, tweeted: "Director General and all ranks of BSF salute the supreme sacrifice of Ct/GD Ranjit Yadav, 163 Bn BSF on 06 June 2023 while deployed at Serou Practical High School, PS Sugnu, Distt Kakching, Manipur.

"Ct/GD Ranjit Yadav dis-played conspicuous bravery, high degree of dedication & devotion to duty during the exchange of fire when suspected Kuki miscreants resorted to indiscriminate & heavy volume of firing to-wards BSF troops.

Prahari Parivaar stands in solidarity with the bereaved family." Meanwhile, a defence re-lease said that multiple inci-dents of violence, arson and firing in Sugnu and Serou in the past 48 hours necessi-tated the redeployment of additional troops.

"Extensive area domination operations by the Assam Ri-fles, BSF and Manipur Police were undertaken in the Sugnu and Serou areas.

Intermittent firing between security forces and the insurgents took place throughout the night.

Securi-ty forces effectively retaliated to the fire," it said.

The troops were tasked to beef up ongoing extensive area domination operations, ambushes and measures to prevent violence.

Security forces took ade-quate measures to prevent insurgents from 'breaking contact' and running away to nearby areas.

Sugnu was comparatively peaceful even after the break out of the ethnic clashes in Manipur on Monday 3.However on June 2, heavily armed militants set fire to the house of former minister and Congress MLA K Ranjit, as well as many other resi-dences.

All houses at Serou have been burnt completely and people were taking refuge at Sugnu.

Following the burning of houses, people of the area started attacking the camp of a Kuki militant group under Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement.

On the other hand, five teams of Kakching and Thou-bal districts police commando led by SI Brown, head consta-ble Umakanta, head consta-ble Rohit, havildar Paras and havildar Kumar conducted search operation at L Thang-gaphai village at Serou area on Tuesday afternoon.

The combined commando team recovered three lethod shells and one empty ammunition box of 5.56mm from the house of one Dr Seikham Touthang named Yum Min Kim Home.

A fierce exchange of fire was also reported between security forces and suspected Kuki militants from Phayeng in Imphal West district, police said, adding that there was no report of any casualty.

Irate villagers had earlier on Sunday night set ablaze an abandoned camp at Sugnu in Manipur's Kakching district on Sunday night, where mil-itants from the United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) were staying after signing a peace accord with the government.

The villagers were vent-ing their anger after militants burnt down at least 100 aban-doned houses at Serou on Sat-urday midnight.

At least 98 people lost their lives and 310 others were in-jured in the ethnic violence in Manipur that broke out a month ago.

A total of 37,450 people are currently sheltered in 272 re-lief camps.

Around 10,000 Army and Assam Rifles per-sonnel have been deployed in the state to bring back peace.

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