Jiri Hmar village attacked, houses torched
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, November 08 2024: At least six to eight houses were burnt after armed persons attacked Zairon village, a Hmar settlement, under Jiribam district on Thursday night.

Information received here, as well as news agencies reported that the armed persons attacked the Hmar village, forcing the inhabitants, including children, women, and elderly people, to flee to safer places.

Security forces led by senior police officials rushed to the village and brought the situation under control.

The perpetrators, however, managed to flee before the security personnel reached the area.

Meanwhile, Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF), an apex body of Kuki-Zo communities, claimed that gunfire continued for about an hour and that a woman was burnt alive.

"During the attack, more than ten houses were set ablaze.

A woman named Sangkim, wife of Ngurthansang Hmar from Zairon, had been burnt by the fire which engulfed her home" .

Another report stated that at least six houses were torched in the attack.

It quoted a senior police officer as saying that preliminary reports suggest several villagers managed to flee during the attack and took shelter in nearby forest.

"At least six houses were severely damaged due to the arson.

An investigation is underway," he said.

Kuki-Zo organisations claimed that a woman, a resident of the village, was killed during the attack but the report of death has not been confirmed by the district police, maintained the news agency.

Among others, two abandoned farmhouses were also set on fire by suspected militants in the Nungkhal area in the same district some days back.

The mixed-populated Jiribam district, adjoining Assam, has witnessed several incidents of violence this year, though the overall situation in the district had been relatively peaceful even after ethnic violence broke out in many other districts of the state since May last year.

Seventeen months after the ethnic violence erupted in Manipur, the Ministry of Home Affairs facilitate the first meeting in Delhi on October 15 of legislators belonging to Meetei, Kuki, and Naga communities in a bid to find a way to a peaceful solution to the unrest.

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