The situation in Kwakta, a town in Bishnupur district, turned volatile after suspected Kuki insurgents from neighbouring Churachandpur district sneaked in and killed three Meitei men on August 5.
Credit: PTI Photo
As security forces continue to fight "armed miscreants" in and around Kwakta, a small town near the buffer zone dividing the valley and the hills of conflict-hit Manipur, nearly 10,000 Meitei Muslims have found themselves caught in the crossfire.
The situation in Kwakta, a town in Bishnupur district, turned volatile after suspected Kuki insurgents from neighbouring Churachandpur district sneaked in and killed three Meitei men on August 5.
Tension in the town, however, has been running high since Thursda,y when a group of nearly 500 Meitei armed miscreants broke into a camp of the Indian Reserve Battalion at Narensenia, another locality in Bishnupur, and allegedly snatched nearly 300 sophisticated weapons.
Security forces, including the Army and Assam Rifles, stepped up combing operations in and around Kwakta as some abandoned houses belonging to Kukis were set on fire. Meitei Muslims, locally called Pangals, who constitute more than 80 per cent of the population of Kwakta, said nearly 75 houses belonging to them were also destroyed due to the firing and bombing by both the security forces as well as armed miscreants. Ward number 8 in Kwakta was the worst sufferer.
Meiteis, who constitute nearly 15 percent of the population, are still in Kwakta but Kukis fled the town after the violence broke out on May 3.
On Tuesday, a group of Meitei Pangals led by the councillor of Ward number 8, Abdul Karim, appealed to both the Kukis and the Meiteis to stop the violence and urged the government to set up a relief camp for nearly 1,000 Meitei Pangals, whose house were damaged due to the ongoing firing. "Nearly 15 Meitei Pangals have also been injured in the gunfight. We are not part of the conflict but we are suffering a lot. We need immediate help and it is our earnest appeal to both the communities to sit for talks and end the conflict," Karim told reporters at Kwakta. "A war-like atmosphere prevails here, our children are scared," he said.
Security forces said the operation was on as sporadic incidents of firing were still being reported, with both the Meitei and Kuki groups trying to attack each other since the killings on August 5.
More than 150 people have been killed and over 60,000 others have been rendered homeless due to the clashes between sections of the Meitei and Kukis in Manipur since May 3. Security forces created a buffer zone between the Valley and the Hills and increased deployment to prevent further escalation of the conflicts.
Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF), a forum of the Kukis, on Tuesday claimed that a mosque was being used by the Meitei armed groups as a "bunker and shelter" in order to carry out attacks on the "village volunteers" of the Kukis.
"By launching attacks on the Kuki-Zo village defence volunteers from within the mosque, the Meiteis are deliberately provoking retaliatory actions, ultimately leading to potential damage to the mosque. Their cunning plan is to then shift the blame onto the Kuki-Zo community, accusing them of attacking and destroying the mosque," ITLF said.
Security forces said they were unaware of the mosque being used by the armed militants and they are just trying to prevent further attacks by both the Meiteis and the Kukis in Kwakta.