Manipur: NIA makes arrest in killing of four civilians in January

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday said it has arrested a militant currently lodged in an Assam prison for his alleged involvement in the killing of four civilians in Manipur’s Bishnupur district in January this year. 

The arrested person has been identified as Lunminsei Kipgen alias Langinmang alias Mang alias Levi, a resident of Manipur. 

He was taken into custody from Central Jail, Lokhra in Guwahati under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Arms Act. 

An NIA spokesperson said in a statement that Kipgen “is the first accused to be arrested for the gruesome killings on January 18, when armed assailants brutally murdered four civilians near the water treatment plant at Ningthoukhong Kha Khunou, Bishnupur”. 

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The assailants had opened indiscriminate fire from sophisticated weapons, leading to the civilians’ deaths. 

The federal anti-terror probe agency had taken up the probe in the attack on February 9. It was found during the probe that “Lunminsei Kipgen was actively involved in the attack, which was part of the ongoing ethnic unrest and violence in the northeastern state”, the agency said. 

“Previously a cadre of the Kuki militant outfit KNF(P), he joined another Kuki militant organisation - the United Kuki National Army - during the current spate of violence and participated in the killings,” it added. 

Since May 3 last year, Manipur has witnessed clashes between the two communities, which have claimed at least 225 lives to date and uprooted around 50,000 people, many of whom are still residing in relief centres. 

The violence has reignited in the state in the last two days after a peaceful couple of months. Just two days after the declaration of election results on June 4, a 59-year-old man identified as S Saratkumar was found beheaded on Thursday allegedly by Kuki militants after a missing report was made at the Jiribam police station. 

On the same evening, in the aftermath of the incident, an irate mob set ablaze three abandoned Kuki villages located near Jiribam, which is a bordering town of Assam and Tamenglong district of Manipur.