Mob stormspolice station,loots armsduring clashin Manipur

 

 

A MOB stormed a police station in Manipur’s Ukhrul town and looted arms during a clash between two groups, officials said on Thursday. Three persons were killed and 20 others injured in a gunfight that broke out between two groups onWednesday over cleaning a disputed land in the town as part of ‘Swachhata Abhiyan’. The police station was attacked when the violence was going on. Prohibitory orders were imposed and mobile internet services were suspended in the town after the clash between two groups of the Naga community.

 

“After violence broke out in Ukhrul town, a mob comprising mostly of youths stormed the police station located at Wino Bazar and decamped with government weapons,” an official said. The number and types of weapons looted cannot be immediately confirmed as an investigation is continuing, he added. Unofficial sources, however, claimed that the looted weapons included AK-47 and INSAS rifles.

 

Looting of arms was reported from various police stations in the ethnic-strife-torn northeastern state earlier, but in all those cases, the areas concerned were dominated by either Meiteis or Kukis, the two warring communities. This is the first time a police station was stormed in a Nagamajority area, according to a source. TWO ABDUCTED YOUTHS RELEASED AFTER A WEEK, REACH IMPHAL: TWO youths who were held hostage by armed men in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district were released and handed over to police on Thursday morning, seven days after they were abducted, an officer said. The two youths - Oinam Thoithoi Singh and Th Thoithoiba Singh - were handed over to Kangpokpi Superintendent of Police at Gamgiphai naka at around 5 am, the officer said. The two reached Imphal safely escorted by state police and Assam Rifles, police said on Thursday.