Suspected insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade on Manipur Police in Moreh
From a daytime ambush on a police convoy by suspected insurgents to a nighttime rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on the barracks of police commandos, Manipur's border town Moreh saw violence on the last day of 2023.
Four police commandos were injured in the RPG attack; another was injured in the ambush on Saturday.
The first attack began with ambushes on special police commandos posted in Moreh, near a "key location point" of the Assam Rifles. A commando was injured in this attack on Saturday.
At 11.40 pm, the situation became extremely volatile after suspected Kuki insurgents fired an RPG at a police barrack and opened up concentrated fire towards the police camp.
The police commandos took position and fired back; the gunfight continued through the night, sources said. Four commandos were injured in the attack, which caught them off guard as they were retiring for the night.
Visuals of the barrack shows shrapnel holes on the walls. The injured commandos were taken to the Assam Rifles' medical facility in Moreh.
A police commando, standing at the site from where the RPG was launched, pointed towards a small window where the projectile had penetrated.
The Kuki group Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) in a statement alleged a Moreh resident, Peter Mate, was arrested and tortured by the police.
Mr Mate, a local school teacher and youth secretary of St George Catholic Church, was arrested on Saturday evening while he was going home and amid the gunfight between the commandos and the suspected insurgents, the ITLF alleged.
In the state capital Imphal, meanwhile, students protested after a bomb found was found in their school, Princeton International School.