The gunfight broke out in Phoubakchao Ikhai area, around 50 km from state capital Imphal, on Thursday morning and continued for around 15 hours till late at night, when the insurgents fled the area.
Security forces fired several rounds in the air to disperse the mob, officials said.
'Replacement of the CM with a more acceptable face may be a good start towards resolving Manipur's problem.'
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.
The spark for the raging violence was lit by demonstrations by tribal groups against a move to grant the majority Meiteis the Scheduled Tribe status, which the residents of the hills had been enjoying for decades since Independence.
"Keeping in view the sensitivity of the use of kinetic force against a large irate mob and envisaged casualties due to such action, the officer on the ground made a considerate decision to hand over all 12 cadres to the local leader. Own columns lifted the cordon and left the area with weapons and war-like stores, recovered from insurgents," it read.
The ITLF said Mizoram has welcomed more than 40,000 refugees from Myanmar and displaced people from Manipur, and it is still the most peaceful state in India.
Terming such 'unwarranted interference' detrimental to the timely response by security forces, the Army's Spears Corps shared a video on Twitter late on Monday of some such incidents.
'Had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh's leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.'
'Manipur is critical to India's Look East policy.' 'It's a strategic state. In the Second World War, the Japanese entered Manipur through Burma.' 'China can use the same direction to approach India.'
Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived in strife-torn Manipur on Monday night to try restore peace by hammering out a solution between the warring communities.
The house of Manipur PWD Minister Konthoujam Govindas in Bishnupur district was vandalised on Wednesday by a group of people claiming that the government in the strife-torn state is not doing enough to protect locals from militants belonging to another community, officials said.
The move could virtually put an end to the Free Movement Regime prevalent along the porous border.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a review meeting in Moreh town of Manipur on Wednesday to take stock of the security situation in the northeastern state which has been witnessing sporadic violence for nearly a month.
The FMR allows people residing close to the India-Myanmar border to venture 16 km into each other's territory without any documents.
Two abandoned houses were set on fire by unidentified people in Manipur's Imphal West district in the early hours of Wednesday, an official said.
The Eastern Command General Officer Commanding-in-Chief also said India is giving shelter to anyone from Myanmar seeking refuge, including common villagers, army or police, in Mizoram and Manipur, but not armed cadres of militant groups of drug traffickers.
Speaking to PTI-Video, Singh said the talks were at an advanced stage, even though he stayed away from naming the underground organisation.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday said his government will provide a one-time assistance of Rs 1000 to those living in relief camps because of ethnic rioting in the state.
Security presence which has been bolstered by flying in more army troops and rapid action force and central police forces was clearly visible at all major areas and roads.
The top court also took note of the submissions about objectionable public utterances by some groups and individuals.
At least eight persons have been killed and 18 injured, including two security personnel, in Manipur's Bishnupur and Churachandpur districts following continuous gunbattle between Kukis and Meiteis over the last 72 hours, officials said on Thursday.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday appealed to people to surrender weapons looted from security forces and warned of legal action against anyone found to be in unauthorised and illegal possession of arms and ammunition.
'You can still hear gunshots, and this time even children know they are not normal.'
The chief of the outlawed Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA) of Manipur died under mysterious circumstances at his brother's rented house on Monday morning.
More than 600 Meiteis have left Mizoram due to fear of tension after a video two tribal women being paraded naked by a mob in Manipur surfaced online recently, a senior police officer said on Thursday.
A top self-styled militant leader of Kuki National Front-President, staying at a 'designated camp' in Manipur's interior Senapati district for holding peace talks with the government, was shot dead from point blank range, the police said on Saturday.
'The State uses identity politics as part of divide and rule; the militant groups too use identity politics and civil society groups are also divided along ethnic groups.'
They staged sit-in demonstrations in various localities blocking roads, demanding the removal of Assam Rifles from violence-hit areas and accusing the paramilitary force of "brutality during recent agitations".
Senior IPS officer Rajiv Singh, belonging to the neighbouring Tripura cadre, was on Thursday appointed as the new director general of police of Manipur.
The three were gunned down while they were sleeping and later slashed with swords at Kwakta in the district, the police said on Saturday morning, adding that the assailants came from Churachandpur.
The Imphal Valley in Manipur, which remained peaceful for most of Friday, witnessed sporadic clashes later in the day as more security forces were rushed in from other states by road and air to calm down a state which had witnessed bloody ethnic rioting over the last 48 hours.
Curfew was imposed in the entire Imphal valley on Thursday following violent protests for the release of five men, including a trained cadre of a banned terror outfit, who were arrested earlier this week on the charges of extortion.
'The central government forces are supporting one group and the state government forces are supporting another group and this is resulting in non-stop cross-firing, which has resulted in the killing of many innocent people.'
Armed vigilante groups have been taking the law into their own hands in parts of Manipur, in the wake of ethnic rioting earlier, thus complicating the peace process. At times, militant groups have joined in the fray, creating an even more volatile cocktail of ethnic tension.
'Deeply hurt by Modi's conspicuous silence for over a month-and-a-half since the outbreak of violence, people in Manipur came on the roads and crushed their radio sets to express their frustration and anger.' 'The fact that Modi's Mann Ki Baat did not have a single reference to the Manipur violence further accentuated this hurt and anger.'
Life in the north-eastern state of Manipur continued to limp back to normal as curfew was relaxed in 11 districts, including Imphal West, Bishnupur, Churachandpur and Jiribam, for six hours from 5 am, as no fresh incident of violence was reported, officials said on Wednesday.
Noting that Gandhi had claimed that armed forces can restore peace in the state within days if allowed, BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wondered if he wanted what his grandmother and then prime minister Indira Gandhi had done by ordering the Air Force to drop bombs in Aizawl in the 1960s.
Around 800 people, including children and the elderly, are living in pitiable conditions in relief shelters near Thangjing temple and Moirang Lamkhai which are being run by three organisations.
No process can offer a panacea for ethnic conflict, but there are times at which a legal process could work to defuse violence, asserts Supreme Court lawyer Devvrat.
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