Imphal, April 12 2010: Village Defense Force (VDF) terrified villagers at Nongpok Sanjembam area in Imphal east 15 kilometer was from Imphal once again when they fired several rounds of guns in the wee hour Monday.

No human casualty reported in the firing last night but caused panicky to the villagers who have been remaining indoor in most of the time since the opening of the VDF post there.

Fear of caught in the indiscriminate firing of the VDF, villagers of the Sanjenbam and its surrounding area remained indoor at dusk.

Not only had the VDF personnel fired indiscriminately at the night time without any apparent reasons.

Villagers said that last night at about 2 am, the VDF personnel from their post in the middle of the village fired several rounds of guns apart from exploding two bombs near by a village to the post.

The firings which apparently have no reason erupted after a gap of around one months during the Holi festival which they apart from firing several rounds of guns but also harassed villagers.

Since the opening of the outpost, villagers heard of firing of guns without any reason at the night time at many occasions, villagers said adding the latest incident of firing was that of last night.

During the Holi (Yaosang) Festival, they fired guns atleast in three instants starting from afternoon till late night.

On that day, VDF personnel also hampered joyous celebration of Yaoshang festival in the late evening, villagers recalled Monday.

Earlier, also there were many instances of firing out indiscriminate from the outpost who forced villagers to remain indoors at dusk, they revealed.

The act of the VDFs is against the strong warning of the separatist outfits not to act like security forces and terrorizing people.

They had also warned of hitting them if they involved in the counter insurgency operations of the security forces and police commandos.

A police outpost recently open in Sanjembam village is only manned by the VDF with armed.

No police personnel stationed at the police outpost even though VDFs were recruited with the sole objective of assisting police in the police stations and its outposts across the state.

Like in other police outposts in Imphal east district where only the VDF personnel stationed, the outpost at Sanjembam is also manned by about 20 VDF personnel under a command of one senior who is the officer in-charge of outpost.

Manipur state home department is engaging VDF personnel to supplement the police force.

They are paying Rs 3000 per month with additional ration money of 570 .

A total of 8550 VDFs are engaging presently including ongoing recruitment of 6200 .

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