Guwahati: Security forces in violence-hit Manipur have arrested two cadres of the Kuki Revolutionary Army Unification (KRA-U), a hill-based insurgent group of the state, as the search continues for two teenage boys missing since Sunday morning.
The police said that the arrested militants are highly suspected to be involved in the alleged abduction of the missing boys. The arrested militants have been remanded in police custody and are currently being interrogated to find the whereabouts of the missing boys. The security forces have launched massive combing and search operations to nab other culprits suspected to be behind the incident.
Taking to X, the Manipur police said, “In connection with the missing case of 02 (two) boys on 05.11.2023, Manipur police and security forces arrested two cadres of KRA (U) who are highly suspected to be involved in committing the crime. The arrested persons have been remanded in police custody for further interrogation. Combing operations are being carried out to apprehend the other culprits.”
Maibam Avinash and Ningthoujam Anthony, aged 16 and 19 respectively, have been missing since Sunday morning after they went to Imphal West district's Sekmai area on a motorcycle to attend a function. Though the duo and the motorcycle are yet to be traced, their mobile phones have been recovered in the Senapati district, located at a distance of around 60 kilometres from the state capital Imphal.
In another incident, a mob on Tuesday confronted a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) at Kangchup Chingkhong under the Saitu Gamphazol subdivision in the state’s Senapati district and forcibly took away four occupants of the vehicle while another managed to escape. The vehicle, carrying two women and three men, was on its way from Churachandpur to Leimakhong in Imphal West district when the incident took place.
Though the security forces later managed to rescue one of them, the whereabouts of another four, including the one who escaped, remain unknown. The security forces immediately airlifted the rescued person in a chopper to Nagaland’s Dimapur for treatment and launched massive search operations to rescue the remaining four persons.
Amidst the chaos between the mob and the security forces, armed miscreants resorted to indiscriminate firing in the K. Songlung hill range of the Senapati district, and Koutruk and Tairenpokpi villages in the Imphal West district. Nine persons, including two police personnel, were injured in the firing and were shifted to the hospital. The security forces later brought the situation under control and while carrying out combing operations destroyed a bunker used by the miscreants in one of the areas.