A fresh round of gunfire tore through Lhunjang village in Manipur's Kangpokpi district in the early hours of Monday, and hours later a primary school in the same area was burned down, police said.
Firing breaks out before dawn
Officers said unidentified armed men moved toward Lhunjang village around 5 am, apparently intending to strike the settlement, prompting security forces stationed nearby to open retaliatory fire. The gun battle stretched on for close to half an hour before it died down, and police confirmed that nobody was hurt in the clash.
Lhunjang comes under the jurisdiction of Chalwa Police Station, roughly 12 kilometres away, and is home to about 40 residents. The village also shelters a post of the Manipur Rifles as well as personnel of the India Reserve Battalion who have been displaced from elsewhere.
School gutted hours later
Once the shooting stopped, the Lhunjang UJB School, situated in a Kuki-populated pocket along IT Road, was allegedly torched and burned to the ground, according to local accounts. Residents in the area blamed cadres of the NSCN (IM) and the ZUF-K for the arson, though authorities have not officially confirmed who was behind it. Police say they have opened a probe to piece together what triggered the firing and who set the school alight.
Another flashpoint on IT Road
The Monday clash adds to a long run of tit-for-tat attacks along the IT Road belt, where communities on either side routinely blame armed men from the rival group for striking villages and residents, keeping the corridor on edge. Each fresh incident tends to deepen the mutual suspicion between the two sides rather than resolve it.
Comes days after a deadly raid in Churachandpur
The Kangpokpi violence took place just two days after a joint operation by the Indian Army and Assam Rifles ended in a firefight with the United Kuki National Army in Churachandpur district, leaving two UKNA militants dead and two more wounded. A subsequent search of the militant camp turned up a substantial haul of weapons, two MA rifles, one AK-56 rifle, a lathode gun, seven lathod grenades, 15 AK magazines, 371 rounds for the AK-56, 601 rounds for the MA rifle and 172 SLR rounds.
