Houses of BJP leaders, party offices come under mob attack in Manipur

GUWAHATI: In strife-torn Manipur, leaders of ruling BJP and its offices are increasingly becoming the targets of frenzied mobs.

Throughout Friday evening and night, mobs made multiple attempts to target the houses of lawmakers and BJP offices in the Imphal Valley.

A BJP mandal office in Thongju was vandalised by a mob but another attempt to target the party office at Sinjemai was thwarted by security forces. The alert forces also foiled attempts from mobs to target the houses of minister Thongam Biswajit and BJP state president A Sharda Devi.

In other incidents, gunfire was reported from Kwakta in Bishnupur district and Kangvai in Churachandpur district throughout Friday night. A mob raided the Iringbam police station in Imphal West district to loot weapons but did not find any. The crowd was later dispersed by the Rapid Action Force.

Earlier, mobs attacked the houses of three lawmakers.

On May 25, the house of minister Konthoujam Govindas was vandalised. This was followed by the burning down of the official residence of minister Nemcha Kipgen last Wednesday. Then on Thursday night, the private residence of Union Minister of State for External Affairs RK Ranjan Singh was torched.

After a series of untoward incidents in Imphal, Army, Assam Rifles and Manipur Rapid Action Force intensified joint patrolling and area domination activities. The forces prevented rioters from congregating till late Friday night. They fought a pitched battle with a mob after the latter had torched a warehouse owned by a retired senior police official. Two civilians were injured.

Curfew is in force in several districts but mobs are congregating almost every day in Meitei-majority Imphal Valley to target the properties of lawmakers. Locals said people are venting their ire out on the streets as the government failed to check rising inflation, restore normalcy and take actions against militants involved in the violence.

Some MLAs, mostly from BJP, are camping in New Delhi to seek an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. One of them, Thokchom Radheshyam Singh, said they would request Modi to take all steps for restoring peace in Manipur.

Meanwhile, the Twitter account of Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) says “@ITLFMediaCell’s account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.”