The Manipur guerrillas killed the India Reserve Battalion (IRB), and its driver in Kangpokpi district of the Imphal valley of the state, according to Kashmir media service.

Both were travelling in a vehicle when the guerrillas belonging to the state’s majority community carried out an ambush between Haraothel and Kobsha villages, the Indian police officials said.

The majority of the population in the state demands independence from Indian yoke.

Additional Indian forces have been deployed in the area and a search was launched to arrest those involved in the incident, a police official said.

More than 180 people have been killed since the violence erupted on May 3 after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised in the districts to protest against the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The Meiteis account for about 50 percent of Manipur’s population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley, while tribals, which include Nagas and Kukis, constitute 50 percent and reside mainly in the hill districts.

Manipur is witnessing a kind of ethnic cleansing

Manipur is witnessing a kind of ethnic cleansing. The Centre is complicit, the State is partisan, and the security forces are split. The Manipur issue is not an isolated one. Reverberations are clear in other places like Haryana. It’s burning down everywhere, writer and activist Arundhati Roy has said.

The country is in a different phase. In Kerala you may not be able to understand it. You are in a place, where you are still relatively politically literate. But in the rest of the country, things had gone very wrong, she said.