CID officer injured in ambush on Manipur CM’s advance convoy | India News – Times of India

GUWAHATI: A CID officer and a driver suffered gunshot wounds in an ambush by unidentified gunmen on Manipur CM N Biren Singh’s advance security convoy in Kangpokpi district Monday, hours before he was to travel to adjoining Jiribam that has been grappling with a resurgence of ethnic violence and arson.
Biren Singh, who was flying back to Imphal from Delhi when the ambush took place at Sinam near Kotland along NH-37 around 10.30am, termed it “an attack on CM himself”.Security forces were combing areas in the vicinity of the ambush site for the assailants till late in the evening.
The wounded officer, Moirangthem Ajesh (28), and his driver colleague were hospitalised in Imphal. CM visited both at Shija Hospital soon after landing in the state capital.
“The state govt has to do something…we will take a decision,” Singh said. “Earlier, state govt didn’t retaliate much in the hope that an understanding could be achieved through talks. However, certain violent acts have been perpetrated on the people as if a state govt does not exist. This has hurt me deeply.”
CM said people should “decide for themselves who are with govt and who are against it”. Singh said he spoke to some of those affected by recent disturbances in Jiribam and told them he would make a visit “in two or three days and look into their requirements”.
Jiribam, in southern part of Manipur and bordering Assam’s Cachar, is a new flashpoint in ethnic strife that erupted in May 2023. Manipur Police issued a statement attributing the recent law-and-order disruptions to the murder of a resident, Soibam Sarat Singh (65), in Jiribam on June 6.
Scores of houses belonging to both the Meitei and Kuki communities had been burned down by arsonists. Two police pickets and the Borobekra forest beat office were also set ablaze by suspected tribal militants, police said.
By June 7, the Jiribam administration had evacuated over 200 men, women and children from the strife-torn areas to relief camps within a sports complex in the district.
The next day, the situation turned worse as unidentified armed men torched the Jiri Mukh and Chotobekra police outposts, and the Goakhal forest beat office. They also set fire to more than 70 evacuated houses in Lamtai Khunou, Dibong Khunou, Nunkhal and Begra villages. The state govt has sent reinforcements, including police commandos, from Imphal, about 220km away. The administration also transferred Jiribam SP A Ghanashyam Sharma and appointed M Pradip Singh as SSP. In Imphal West, police rescued a kidnapped civilian on Sunday and arrested his two captors.