HAND GRENADE THREAT AT EX-VC OF MU; MISCREANTS FIRE AT SHOP
Amid the intensified crackdown on extortion and criminal activities, miscreants continued threatening individuals allegedly for defying their demands across the valley of the restive Manipur.
Barely a day after, a former vice-chancellor of Manipur University was threatened by a hand grenade deposited near his residence, miscreants on Sunday fired at a shop in Thoubal district. A police source said that armed miscreants fired at least three rounds of gunshot at a shop at New Market in Heirok under Thoubal police station today morning, around 4.30 am.
No injury was reported in the gun firing incident as the shop dealing with betel leaves was yet to be opened for the day’s business at the time of firing, a police source said.
The shop belonged to Ningthoujam Bijenkumar alias Roben, a resident of Heirok part (III) of Thoubal district. He is a retired Army.
The shop proprietor suspected cadres of an armed group while disclosing that he has been under threats for not paying a huge amount of five lakh demanded by miscreants who identified themselves to be members of a proscribed armed group.
“I am suspicious the attack might be carried out for extortion activities. I received a demand letter of a huge amount of Rs five lakh recently but he didn’t accept,” he told the reporters.
A team of Thoubal police station who rushed to the area soon after the gun firing, conducted a spot inquiry before registering a case against unknown miscreants for further investigation. Sunday’s gun attack comes barely a day after unknown miscreants planted a hand grenade at the residence of Professor Hijam Tombi Singh, former vice-chancellor of Manipur University, at Sagolband Tera Yengkhom Leirak under Lamphel police station of Imphal West district on Saturday morning.
Family members found the hand grenade lying at the main entrance gate around 5.30 am The police suspected cadres of an armed group behind the depositing of the hand grenade in connection with monetary demand.
A sharp rise in the extortion and criminal activities reported in the state amid the ongoing violent ethnic conflict besieging the state since May 2023.
To deal with these menaces, the Manipur Police has established an Integrated Anti-Extortion Cell to combat the rising issue of extortion in the state.
This cell includes representatives from the state police, Central armed police forces, and the Assam Rifles.
The aim is to create a robust mechanism to address extortion demands and curb related activities and to achieve the goal, the police along with the security forces have been carrying out intelligence-based combing and search operations to nab those involved in the extortion and criminal activities.
In the ongoing operations, as per the daily law and order update of the state police, as many as seven cadres of different armed groups allegedly involved in the extortion and criminal activities were nabbed in the last two days.
Four of the nabbed cadres belonged to different factions of KCP while two belonged to PREPAK (Pro) and one to KYKL.
A hand grenade was also recovered from the nabbed KYKL cadre, the police said, adding that the security forces made the arrests in separate operations in Bishnupur, Imphal West and Thoubal districts.