Bodies of Jiribam encounter victims airlifted to Manipur from Assam
Hundreds of people had been protesting at the premises of Assam’s Silchar Medical College and Hospital since November 13 over the handing over of the bodies
The bodies of 10 Manipur residents, who were killed in an encounter with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Jiribam on November 11, have been airlifted to Churachandpur in the state from Assam’s Silchar Medical College and Hospital, where they were brought on November 12 for postmortem.
Hundreds of people from Hmar and Kuki communities from Jiribam and Assam had been protesting at the premises of SMCH since November 13 over the handing over of the bodies and on Saturday morning, the situation turned violent after the Assam and Manipur police attempted to take the bodies out.
Police lathi-charged the protesters and in response, they pelted stones at the police, leaving many officers injured. Four journalists also sustained injuries in stone pelting.
Some senior cops of the Assam and Manipur police intervened and after a 30-minute talk, the protesters agreed to allow the bodies to be transported to Manipur.
The bodies were taken out of the morgue at around 1pm under high security arrangements by the Assam and Manipur police and were taken to the Assam Rifles base in Masimpur, nearly 12 kilometres from Silchar. From there the bodies were airlifted to Churachandpur at around 2.40pm.
Before that the protesting individuals of Hmar and Kuki communities performed several rituals as per their traditions and most of them were seen in tears. A woman said, “They are our martyrs, and they deserve respect.”
David Keivom from Dima Hasao, who came to control the chaos, said that the decision of bringing bodies to Assam from Jiribam, was not appropriate and unnecessarily keeping them in the morgue for several days was even worse.
“In Cachar and Dima Hasao, all the communities, including Meiteis, Kukis and Hmars, live together peacefully. It was a wrong decision to bring the bodies of people killed in the neighbouring state here. The government should learn something from the recent developments and think twice,” he said.
After the departure of vehicles carrying the bodies, the superintendent of police of Cachar district, Numal Mahatta said that the situation in Cachar has returned to normal and they will investigate the stone pelting matter further.
“We never allowed the tension from Manipur to escalate to Cachar and we won’t spare anyone involved in unlawful activities. Today, some people got emotionally moved and attacked our officers, we’ll investigate this and may take lawful action against them,” he said.
According to people familiar with the matter, three more bodies of Manipur residents will be brought to SMCH for postmortem. On Friday evening, the bodies of three abducted Jiribam residents were taken here for postmortem.
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