On Saturday, hundreds of people protested in different parts of Imphal Valley after three bodies were found, suspected to be of persons who went missing after the violence in Jiribam district.
The victims discovered in the stretch of the Jiri and Barak River at the border of Manipur and Assam states were a woman and two children. Most of the victims had been missing since a gun battle with militants in Jiribam on Monday. Officials have stated that the bodies were moved to the Silchar Medical College Hospital in Assam for a post-mortem examination. The search for the other three missing persons is still ongoing.
The protest was mainly coordinated by women in the matters of child abuse, and they took the street and protested in the main areas in the districts of Kwakeithel and Sagolband Tera of Imphal West by burning tires and barricading the roads. Some of the protestors marched to the Khwairamband Market, where women traders protested the killings in vain.
As a result of increased violence, security forces flooded Imphal; some shops and markets have been closed due to the news of the recovery of the bodies. Protests were carried out in Ningthoukhong in Bishnupur district and Lamlong in Imphal East.
Such acts actually cause communication from Meitei organizations accusing militants of abducting the six missing individuals, exacerbating the already worsening situation in the region. The recent ethnic clash between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo factions that started in May the following year saw the loss of more than a hundred lives and forced displacements.
Another district is Jiribam. He had witnessed no presence of any conflict, but recently, there has been an increasing in violence for example, in June, a mutilated body was found. The neighboring Cachar district in Assam has also sounded an alert; authorities are beefing up security by conducting patrols twenty-four hours along remote border areas to counter incoming attacks.
Demonstrations against the government of Manipur over the unrest also emerged in Aizawl Mizoram where people vent their anger over the inept handling of the ethnic issue.
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