Curfew was imposed on Thursday after protesters stormed police stations demanding the release of five youths who had earlier been arrested for carrying sophisticated weapons and wearing camouflage uniforms similar to army fatigues.
The fate of the soldier's aunt Neilam (55), brother-in-law Jamkhotang (40) and cousin Thangjam Haokip (25) still remain unknown.
In the wake of arrest of five persons for extortion in Manipur including a suspected member of a banned terror group, the Manipur police has again warned of stern action against all those who were misusing the uniform for their ulterior motives.
Meira Paibis, a collective of Meitei women, on Friday staged sit-in demonstrations across five districts of Imphal Valley in protest against the alleged gang rape of a 37-year-old woman in Churachandpur on May 3, when the ongoing ethnic violence started.
Protest rallies erupted in Imphal with thousands of students marching towards the centre of the city, sloganeering against the kidnapping and killing of two youths for the second consecutive day on Wednesday.
The video, which drew widespread condemnation, shows the men constantly molesting the two helpless women, who cry and plead with their captors to spare them the horror.
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.
The move comes after the Manipur high court had directed the state government to operationalise mobile towers, on a trial basis, in all those district headquarters which have not been affected by the ethnic clashes.
The officials said that in the present environment where two communities are attacking each other, they may not find even a lawyer to defend them as all courts were within Imphal valley.
They said information has been circulated throughout all formations to ensure that the Manipur Police Commando uniform, black in colour, is not misused and they have been instructed to intensify the vigil.
A gunfight broke out between two groups of people in Manipur's Bishnupur district on Thursday, officials said.
All marketplaces in the town were deserted and attendance in government and private offices was nil. Schools and colleges also remained shut, officials said.
The state government order came amid reports that properties belonging to members of one of the warring communities are being burnt or razed to the ground by the other in various places.
ZSF President Nengzalian Tonsing, who filed the FIR at Churachandpur police station on July 13, accused Tapta of promoting enmity between different communities.
In a fresh round of violence in ethnic strife-torn Manipur, mutilated bodies of three youths were found following heavy gunfire at Kuki Thowai village in Ukhrul district on Friday, officials said.
The agency filed the charge sheets in the interconnected cases before a designated special court in Kamrup, giving a sequence of events before they went missing.
The force also asked the Churachandpur police to disseminate the inputs to the SP of Kakching district and higher authorities so that "preemptive action can be taken to avert any kind of adverse incident".
They said keeping in mind the situation arising out of ethnic clashes that broke out in the state on May 4, a team of women officials and personnel from Manipur police was formed to probe the case.
The union home minister is reportedly concerned over the shifting of violence and civil unrest from peripheral areas to districts in the Imphal valley.
Over 25 people were injured in clashes as Indian Army and Rapid Action Force personnel fired tear gas shells in Kangvai and Phougakchao areas in Bishnupur district on Thursday to stop processions from proceeding to the proposed burial site violating restrictions on gatherings.
ESU coach Ngampao Kipgen, a member of the Kuki tribe, told Reuters he was forced to flee to the hills with his family after his house was burned down.
Hours before the clashes, a planned mass burial of Kuki-Zomi people killed in Manipur's ethnic violence was stalled after the state's High Court on Thursday morning ordered status quo to be maintained at the proposed burial site in Churachandpur district.
Altogether 127 checkpoints were installed in the valley and hill districts of the northeastern state, and 873 people were detained on Wednesday for violation of rules.
The ban was imposed on her by civil society group Kangleipak Kanba Lup for taking part in the event held in Delhi, amid the ongoing violence in Manipur.
The two women are alleged to have been sexually assaulted before being set free by a mob. A 26-second video of the incident had surfaced on July 19.
This is the fourth incident since the commencement of the conflict in Manipur wherein soldiers while on leave, on duty or their relatives have been targeted for nefarious interests by inimical elements.
The Army and Assam Rifles were requisitioned in the night, and along with the state police, the forces arrested the violence by the morning, the spokesperson said.
The two women are alleged to have been sexually assaulted before being set free by a mob. A 26-second video of the incident had surfaced on July 19.
'It is in the interest of China and Pakistan to give a bad name to the Indian Army and remove AFSPA 'completely' from the north east.' 'Hopefully, better sense will prevail and the ground realities of the army countering insurgency in the north east acknowledged,' asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Fifteen houses were set on fire in Manipur's Imphal West district where fresh violence broke out, officials said on Sunday.
Security forces columns, which were immediately deployed in these "vacant" villages, responded cautiously to avoid any collateral damage.
Quoting data collected from various sources, officials closely monitoring the situation here said that .303 rifles, Medium Machine Guns (MMG) and AK assault rifles, carbines, Insas Light Machine Guns (LMG), Insas rifles, M-16 and MP5 rifles were reported to be missing from the armouries of the police in May.
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.
Government spokesperson and Information and Public Relations Minister Sapam Rajan said that the government is making efforts towards this end.
Two bodies, including that of a woman, with bullet wounds were recovered in Imphal East and West districts in Manipur, police said on Thursday.
Manipur witness more violence on Tuesday when unidentified armed men, suspected to be cadres of banned terror groups, attacked people from the tribal community in the morning killing three of them in Kangpokpi district, officials said.
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.
Former India spinner and Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh has demanded "capital punishment" for all those who were involved in the heinous crime of parading two Manipuri women naked and allegedly gang-raping them.
Tension mounted in the hills of Manipur after a video from May 4 surfaced on Wednesday showing two women from one of the warring communities being paraded naked by a few men from the other side, officials said in Imphal on Wednesday.
Altogether 45 students were injured in Manipur's Imphal Valley on Tuesday as the police fired tear gas shells and baton-charged a mob protesting against the killing of two youths who were allegedly kidnapped in July, officials said.
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