Manipur: United Naga Council calls for 12-hr bandh, Committee on Tribal Unity for 72-hr NH-2 shutdown

A 12-hour shutdown has been called across the Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur from 6 am on Monday by the United Naga Council (UNC) to protest the killing of Naga woman on July 15. Another group, the Committee on Tribal Unity (Cotu) has also called a 72-hour total shutdown on National Highway-2 condemning the killings and the setting ablaze of three LPG-carrying trucks by miscreants at Sekmai in Imphal West on Saturday. The National Highway-2 is considered to be the lifeline to Imphal. The UNC, who also blocked the National Highway, said it had earlier warned the Meitei and Kuki communities not to drag the Nagas into their ethnic conflict in Manipur that broke out in the state on May 3. Two tribals - a 55-year-old mentally ill woman and a 34-year-old man - were killed by gunmen in Manipur in the past two days. The mentally ill woman was shot in her face at her residence in Keibi Heikak Mapal village in Imphal district on Saturday. The miscreants disfigured her face before fleeting the spot. In a statement, the UNC said that the victim was “forcefully apprehended” by a woman group and handed over to a private militia that killed her. It also called for exemplary punishment for the culprits behind the killing of the woman. The Nagas, comprising 20 tribes, are the second-largest community in Manipur after the non-tribal Meitei, who dominate the Imphal Valley. In another incident, around 40 to 50 armed miscreants, suspected to be militants, stormed Laimaton Thangbuh, a Kuki village in Kangpokpi district in the hills, where a 34-year-old man identified as Jangkholun Haokip was killed. As many as nine people, including five women, have been arrested for the murder of the tribals. At least 19 people were arrested in connection with the arson. On Sunday, they were produced before the district magistrate of Imphal West. While 17 of them were remanded in police custody for four days, two minors were referred to the Juvenile Justice Board. As per reports, more than 150 people have lost their lives and several thousand have been injured in ethnic clashes between the Kuki and Meitei communities that erupted in Manipur on May 3. With inputs from agencies