Abducted kids, women: Senior police officials in Manipur’s Jiribam to supervise rescue operations

Imphal: Senior police officials, of the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General rank, have been camping in Manipur’s Jiribam district to supervise the operation to locate the three children and the three women, who were reportedly kidnapped by the militants on November 11 amid the gunfight following the attack on a CRPF camp.

A Manipur Police post on X said: “Senior officers of IG and DIG ranks of Manipur Police are presently stationed in Jiribam and Borobekra areas for supervision and coordination of efforts by forces regarding the 6 missing persons”.

A police official in Imphal said that combined security forces of the Army, the Assam Rifles, the CRPF, and the state police have been conducting the search operations to rescue the abducted children and women.

These children and women were the inmates of a relief camp set up adjoining the Borobekra police station.

Family and relatives of the six abducted people along with representatives of the Jiribam Students’ Forum (JSF) met Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Thursday night to convey their grievances and demands regarding the entire case. They also submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister demanding rescue of the hostages.

Speaking to the media after the meeting Singh, Ningthoujam Ibenoubi, daughter of Yurembam Rani, who is among the abducted, stated that the Chief Minister had assured them that the government had taken all-out efforts to rescue the captives.

“I have not taken any food since they went missing and will continue my fast till the case is brought to justice,” she said.

According to the police after the encounter between the CRPF and the Kuki militants on November 11, the militants kidnapped the six people at gunpoint and kept them at their hideout.

Police said that in the encounter, 10 Kuki militants were killed and the militants also kidnapped 10 people, all inmates of a relief camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district’s Borobekra sub-division.

The police official said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians — Maibam Kesho Singh, 75, and Laishram Barel, 61 — were found. He said that another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station while the six people remained untraced so far.

Tribal organisations, however, claimed that the 10 slain people were not militants, they were “Kuki Village Volunteers protecting villagers”.

Meanwhile, hundreds of school and college students across the six districts of Imphal Valley on Thursday organised multiple human chains in front of their respective educational institutions to protest the abduction of the children and women.

Organised by the students wing of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an apex body of the Meitei community, the students carried placards written with “Today is Children’s Day”, “Release the innocent children” and “Release our friends”.

The COCOMI, various other civil society organisations, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress also have been demanding the government to “rescue” the six untraced people, alleging negligence by both state and Central forces leading to the abduction.

In all, 13 civil society organisations observed a 24-hour shutdown down six Imphal Valley districts on Tuesday and Wednesday to protest the reported “abduction” of six people, belonging to the Meitei community. The organisations, including Peace and Social Advancement (IPSA) and Peoples’ Action for National Democratic Movement (PAMDM) in a joint statement, claimed that there is no rule of law in the state.

Police officials said that various security forces have been continuing their hectic operations to locate and rescue them. Adjoining southern Assam, ethnically diverse Jiribam was largely unaffected in the 18-month-long ethnic riot in Imphal Valley and in the Kuki-Zo-dominated mountainous areas. The district has now been witnessing violence after the mutilated body of a farmer, belonging to the Meitei community, was found on a farm in June this year.