Major Fire Near Manipur Secretariat Close To Chief Minister's Bungalow

A huge fire broke out at a building near the high-security secretariat complex in Manipur's capital Imphal today. The building is just a few hundred metres from the official bungalow of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, the police said.

Four fire trucks came to the site and doused the blaze this evening, the police said, adding they are checking what caused the fire.

The Imphal West Superintendent of Police in a statement said an abandoned house near "Kuki Inn, Old Lambulane... was gutted by fire. Immediately, teams of Imphal West Police and fire trucks rushed to the spot and doused the fire... The first floor of the house was partially gutted."

"The exact cause of the fire is not known," the police said in the statement, adding a case has been filed to look into the "facts and circumstances" including short-circuit. "... Efforts are on to arrest culprits, if any," the police said in the statement.

The building that caught fire is in the same complex as the main office of the Kuki Inpi, a civil society group of the Kuki tribes that has been supporting the call by another Churachandpur-based Kuki group called the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) for a "separate administration" carved out of Manipur.

The incident happened within a week of fresh violence igniting in Manipur's Jiribam district, bordering Assam, between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the hill-dominant Hmar tribes.