Suspected Kuki insurgents fired at a police station in Manipur's Jiribam district of India on Saturday.
Police sources in the district's Borobekra subdivision confirmed the matter, reports NDTV.
The suspected Kuki insurgents began firing at 5.30 am at Borobekra police station, some 30 km from the Jiribam district headquarters, police sources said.
Visuals from the police station show bullet holes on the walls and doors. Continuous gunfire could be heard. The security forces launched a combing operation soon after the attack, sources said.
A house was also set on fire, and there was at least one bomb attack, police sources said.
"Sporadic firings are happening in some areas, including in Jiribam district. With the efforts of security forces, the situation has been brought under control," Manipur Police chief Rajiv Singh told reporters.
Today's attack came just days after Meitei, Naga and Kuki MLAs of the ruling BJP and its allies met the Centre in Delhi separately for the first time since ethnic violence began in May 2023.
A statement on Friday under the letterhead 'Hmar Village Volunteers' threatened the police and paramilitary forces to leave an area in Jiribam "before sunset", or take responsibility for any incident that may happen.
The Meitei civil society organisation Jiri Apunba Lup in a statement on Saturday raised concern about the threat, and alleged Kuki insurgents launched "a massive attack on Borobekra police station with gunfire and bombs the next day…A shop and a house were damaged using bombs and a house was burned down."
On August 1, representatives of the Meitei community and the Hmar tribe held a peace meeting in Jiribam, and agreed to work for normalcy nearly two months after ethnic violence reached the district bordering Assam.
Jiribam, 250 km from the state capital Imphal, didn't see violence for over a year since Meitei-Kuki ethnic violence began in May 2023; however, clashes erupted in the district in June, forcing over a thousand people from both the communities to live in relief camps, some in neighbouring Assam.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
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