Four people, including two women, were killed in a suspected ambush allegedly carried out by Kuki militants along the Imphal-Dimapur National Highway (NH-2) in Manipur’s Ukhrul district on Friday afternoon, police said.
The incident reportedly took place at New Haven, under the jurisdiction of Litan Police Station in the hill district of Ukhrul, which shares an unfenced international border with Myanmar and an inter-state border with Nagaland.
Security forces, led by senior police officials, have rushed to the spot, while the Litan Police Station was investigating the circumstances surrounding the suspected ambush.
Local media reports said that the victims belong to the Naga community.
A police official in Imphal, quoting the local people, said that the two men and two women, who were travelling in the two cars, died on the spot following the attack by the armed militants.
Bullet marks were seen on the windshields of the two vehicles, he said.
Further details of the incident are awaited.
Meanwhile, normal life was partially affected in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district on Friday, with shops, markets and business establishments remaining closed following a bandh called by a tribal organisation to protest against the killing of a Kuki woman in a gunfight between two rival groups on Thursday.
Most vehicles, including passenger buses and auto-rickshaws, remained off the roads, causing considerable inconvenience to commuters.
The Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU) called the 48-hour shutdown from midnight on November 12 following the gunfight in the vicinity of Taphou Kuki village on Thursday.
Educational institutions, medical facilities and emergency services were exempted from the purview of the bandh.
The COTU demanded the withdrawal of all central and state security forces, particularly those operating under the command of the Senapati district Superintendent of Police (SP), from the mountainous areas of Kangpokpi district.
A 42-year-old Kuki woman, identified as Kimneineng Chongloi, was shot dead, while two others were injured during a gun battle between rival armed groups in an area near Taphou Kuki village in Kangpokpi district and Kailengjang in neighbouring Senapati district on Thursday.
Kuki organisations alleged that the woman was killed by cadres of the NSCN-IM and ZUF-K while she was working in a paddy field.
At least 50 people have been killed in clashes between Kuki and Naga groups in the hill districts of Manipur since February this year.
