Houses torched in Serou, UKLF camp destroyed
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, June 04 2023:
Around 200 houses in Serou village of Kakching district were set on fire by suspected heavily armed Kuki militants on late Sat-urday night even as a team of Ma-nipur police commando destroyed the Nazareth designated camp of the United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF).
Around 10 Kuki militants are suspected to have been killed or critical injured during the fierce gunfight.
According to a report, despite union home minister Amit Shah's assurances to restore peace in the state during his visit on May 29, Kuki militants have been attacking and setting fire to Meetei villages in various places unabated.
On Saturday around 10 pm, heavily armed Kuki militants from the Nazareth designated camp of UKLF launched an attack on the state forces deployed in the area which the latter retaliated.
Taking advantage of the gun fight, the Kuki militants de-scended from the hills and set fire to around 200 Meetei homes in Serou Mamang Leikai, Serou Awang Leikai and Serou Bazar Mayai Leikai.
The houses targeted includ-ed that of Congress MLA Ranjit at Serou.
Recounting the incident to this daily, a Serou resident informed that around 9pm Saturday, a Casper bullet proof vehicle of the 37 Assam Rifles was on patrolling in the area.
After 10 minutes, news broke out that the Kuki militants at the UKLF camp were about to attack Meitei villages in the area and as such, the villagers immediately fled.
Some local volunteers, commandos, VDF, IRB and BSF, who had been deployed in Serou area, were attacked by the Kuki militants.
Amid the gunfire, some of the militants set fire to the houses in the area.
At the time of the attack, the people of Sugnu and Se-rou, who had been facing gun attacks from Kuki militants every night, had made three MLAs, who had come to hear their grievances, spend the night.
The Kuki militants at-tacked the place where the MLAs were staying around 10 pm.
However, the three MLAs were safely evacuated from the location just as the attack began.
On early Sunday morning, a team of state forces including additional commando and BSF teams arrived and attacked a ply factory in Serou and the UKLF designated camp in Nazareth.
The fire exchange continued till 2-3pm.It is believed that around 10 Kuki militants were killed during the gun fight.
But after the state forces took over Nazareth and conducted a search, the bodies were nowhere to be found.
The security forces, however, did witness some of the Kuki militants carrying some bodies while escaping.
On receiving news of the incident at Serou, top police officers from Imphal also ar-rived at the location.
Security forces managed to chase away the Kuki militants till Serou Lamkhai.
Additional forces of CRPF and BSF are being deployed in the area to prevent any further attacks from the Kuki militants.
Meanwhile, a source con-veyed that despite being informed of the gunfight between Kuki militants and security forces and burning of Meetei houses, which con-tinued from Saturday night till Sunday afternoon, the 37 Assam Rifles deployed in the area neither assisted in the operation nor took any action against the militants.
Afterwards, the top AR of-ficials arrived at the location and conveyed their intention to provide assistance to the state forces, but were rejected by the officers (state forces) present in the area.
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