Manipur cops defuse IED planted at pharmacy

Bomb experts of Manipur police on Friday defused an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted in front of a pharmacy in the capital city.
The IED was found inside an unattended tiffin carrier in front of Lamphel Pharmacy, opposite to the southern gate of RIMS hospital, Imphal,around 8 am.
A salesman who arrived to open the pharmacy for the day’s business found the unattended tiffin carrier in a black colour polythene bag.
When the salesman found a mobile handset inside the tiffin carrier, the proprietor of the pharmacy informed the police on suspicion.
A police team who rushed to the spot on being informed of the suspicious package, blocked roads to RIMS hospital as precautionary measures before calling out experts of the state police bomb detection and disposal squad.
The traffic was blocked for about two hours while the experts examined the unattended tiffin carrier. Explosive materials were found in a can inside the tiffin connected to the mobile handset.
It was remotely controlled by an IED, experts said after successfully defusing the same and disposed it at safe place later.
The planting of the IED was amid the recent series of blasts in areas within the capital city and barely three days after the police claimed arrest of the man behind the blast series.
On June 7, the police claimed National Revolutionary Front of Manipur (NRFM) was behind the recent series of bomb blasts in Imphal area after they arrested a person with explosives and other items used in assembling IEDs.
Meanwhile, the NRFM, in a release to media houses in Imphal, claimed responsibility for the planting of the IED in front of the pharmacy.
The IED was planted to teach a lesson to the ‘high-handed’ proprietor of the pharmacy. It was fortunate that swift action of the police avoided a major tragedy that would have been created by the impact of the blast, it said.
They will continue to target the pharmacy, the release threatened.
The release further clarified that the group has nothing to do with the blast at the gate of Little Flowers School, Imphal in the morning of May 6.
It also refuted the police claim of nabbing a man behind the series of blasts in Imphal areas in recent time, including at Little Flowers School.
The arrested man was not a cadre of the outfit. The explosives and other materials which the police recovered from his house, however, belonged to the group.
Cadres of the group had deposited items to the house of the man to avoid arrest by security forces on their way to a mission.
On June 7, the state police claimed NRFM was behind the recent series of bomb blasts in Imphal area, including at the gate of the Little Flowers School, while informing that an active cadre of the group was arrested by them during an operation at Kangla Sangomshang of Imphal East district.