The death toll from clashes a day before rose to five on Monday as three more people, who were undergoing treatment in hospitals, succumbed to their injuries, they said.
A group of people tried to gherao the residence of Union Minister of State for External Affairs Rajkumar Ranjan Singh in Imphal East district claiming that the government in the strife-torn state is not doing enough to protect locals from militants belonging to another community, officials said on Friday.
Security forces which tried to quell the mob were forced to use force and fired tear gas shells at the mob at New Checkon in Imphal, they added.
The injured have been air evacuated to Mantripukhri and search operations are in progress, the Army's SpearCorps headquartered in Dimapur said on Twitter.
Over seven months of violence severely hit businesses, schools, colleges and other institutions, besides disrupting transportation and communication networks. It also affected the agrarian sector, considered the mainstay of the state economy.
'Assam Rifles have prevented a large number of genocides and killings.'
Ten Manipur tribal MLAs Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to withdraw Assam Rifles from security duties in the violence-hit state, saying its personnel have been putting their lives at risks to create buffer zones between the two warring communities.
'The Centre prevaricates on the question of effecting a change of state-level leadership or on the imposition of President's rule in the state.'
Manipur Police has registered a first information report (FIR) accusing the Assam Rifles of blocking their vehicle after an altercation between the two groups last week, while the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace Assam Rifles 'by any other paramilitary force permanently' from the state.
Asking Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state government, to file an updated status report, the bench said, "It should have details like rehabilitation camps, law and order and recovery of arms."
"Dialogue is the only solution to the ongoing crisis in Manipur," Shah said.
'And (the prime minister does so) without giving any hint of a recognition of the political violence resulting in the ethnic cleansing (of tribals and Kukis) which he simply equates it with atrocities against women in other parts of India.' 'This is not acceptable.'
The present happenings in Manipur are the wages of continued neglect, and not so benign at that, of a vital region and its people. Had we lavished on the North East even a fraction of the care and resources we do on Kashmir, things would not have come to this pass, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Eleven people, including six suspected United National Liberation Front insurgents, were killed in two separate incidents in the state, officials sources said on Saturday.
More than 10 Kuki outfits, demanding carving out of small states from Manipur on ethnic lines, are operating in the state.
The area was a theatre of violence for several years since Naga-Kuki ethnic clash broke out in 1993 and the civilian Kuki tribe population suffered severely in that war zone.
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