By Tora Agarwala
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Ten armed men were killed in a gunfight with security forces in India’s remote northeastern state of Manipur on Monday, officials said, after they allegedly tried to attack a police station.
Sporadic violence had rocked Manipur since last year when the majority Meitei community and the tribal Kukis clashed after a court ordered the state government to consider extending special economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education enjoyed by the Kukis to the Meiteis as well.
At least 250 people have been killed and some 60,000 displaced since the fighting broke out in May, 2023.
“Miscreants attacked a police station earlier this afternoon,” said Krishna Kumar, deputy commissioner of the state’s Jiribam district where the gunfight took place.
The attackers were killed after central security forces retaliated, Kumar said, adding that the region has been tense since last week, when a 31-year-old tribal woman was burned and killed.
A state of 3.2 million people, Manipur has been divided into two ethnic enclaves since the conflict began – a valley controlled by the Meiteis and the Kuki-dominated hills. The areas are separated by a stretch of no-man’s land monitored by federal paramilitary forces.
A local police official, who asked not to be named since he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the men belonged to the larger tribal Kuki-Zo community.
One security officer was critically injured, he added.
(Reporting by Tora Agarwala, editing by Ed Osmond)
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