Frustration continues to mount over the prolonged mobile internet suspension with a Senapati district-based Naga students body imposing highway blockade over the issue since October 5.
There was a brief lull between 3 am and 6 am, but the sounds of indiscriminate firing from Phayeng and Singda villages in the Kangchuk area along the two districts resumed after that.
The Manipur government on Friday told the Supreme Court that it has filed a status report on the issue of recovery of arms from 'all sources' in the ethnic violence-hit state.
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.
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.
The Supreme Court of India has expressed concern over the protracted trials in heinous offences related to Maoist activities, stating that indefinite incarceration violates the right to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. Two separate benches of the court granted relief to two accused, citing the delayed trials. One bench expedited the trial of a man accused of transporting ammunition for a banned organization, while the other granted bail to a man accused of transporting materials for Naxal activities. The court emphasized the importance of speedy trials and suggested the establishment of special courts to handle Maoist-related cases, aiming to expedite proceedings. The court also criticized the practice of examining an excessive number of witnesses, which can lead to indefinite delays in the conclusion of trials.
President Droupadi Murmu has approved gallantry awards to 93 armed forces personnel, including two Kirti Chakras and 14 Shaurya Chakras, on the eve of Republic Day. The Kirti Chakras, India's second-highest peacetime gallantry award, have been awarded to Major Manjit from 22 Rashtriya Rifles and posthumously to Naik Dilwar Khan, 28 Rashtriya Rifles. The president also approved 305 defense decorations to Armed Forces and other personnel.
However, a central BJP leader downplayed the development and ruled out any changes in the state government, noting that tussle between different interest groups has been a feature of Manipur politics.
The Manipur government dubbed as untrue the claim by the counsel for the committee appointed by the apex court to oversee relief and rehabilitation of the victims of ethnic violence that the people of the state were suffering on account of an economic blockade.
Security forces columns, which were immediately deployed in these "vacant" villages, responded cautiously to avoid any collateral damage.
'I saw effigies of PM Modi and HM Amit Shah being burnt at a few places in the state, saw attempts of attack on BJP office'
One person was killed and another injured in heavy firing between two groups at Narainsena in Bishnupur district on Tuesday morning, police said.
The Arambai Tenggol has been a focal point of controversy, with Kuki representatives blaming the organisation for exacerbating violence.
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.
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.
A vacation bench of justices Aniruddha Bose and Rajesh Bindal said the high court is already seized of a similar issue.
A senior bishop of the influential Syro-Malabar Catholic Church on Thursday said instead of saying in the US that there is no discrimination in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should try to convince the Christians in Manipur about that.
Demanding the resignation of Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson Swati Maliwal on Tuesday questioned why the CM could not meet the women who were stripped and paraded, when she could do so.
BJP's Manipur unit has told its national president J P Nadda that people are angry as the state government has so far failed to contain the ethnic strife.
An Indian Army soldier was injured after armed miscreants resorted to unprovoked firing from Kanto Sabal towards Chingmang village on the intervening night of June 18-19.
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.
Close to 2,000 passengers are stranded at the premises of the airport, the terminal building of which can handle only 750 passengers -- 250 for arrival and 500 for departure -- at a time.
A group of people torched the office building of the Range Forest Officer in Tuibong area around midnight, and several fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames, they said.
The apex court ordered adequate steps to be taken for protecting places of worship.
The mob also tried to snatch weapons from the police, forcing them to fire at the crowd. No casualty was reported so far, the sources said.
Expressing anguish over the manner in which women were subjected to grave atrocities in Manipur, the Supreme Court has said that mobs use sexual violence to send a message of subordination to the other community and the state is bound to stop this.
Another case of sexual assault has come to light in Manipur after a 37-year-old married woman from Churachandpur district alleged she was gang-raped by a group of men while fleeing her burning house on May 3, the day on which the ethnic strife began in the northeastern state, police said.
Suddenly, a mob gathered near the locality, pelting stones and shouting slogans asking residents to leave. Manipur had been tense throughout the day with demonstrations and protests in Churachandpur and Imphal, some of which had turned violent.
"Dialogue is the only solution to the ongoing crisis in Manipur," Shah said.
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.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu shelled out Rs 60,000 from his own pocket for the evacuation of five local students stuck in violence-hit Manipur, an official spokesperson of the government said on Monday.
A women's rally outside the Imphal residence of Union minister R K Ranjan Singh turned ugly when the protestors threw stones at it demanding that he speak in Parliament about the situation in the ethnic strife-affected state.
In fresh violence in Manipur, two houses were torched by a mob in Imphal East district after two armed miscreants forced people to shut their shops on Monday afternoon, police officials said.
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.
The Parliament session is set to start today, with various issues slated to be discussed, including the Waqf Act (Amendment) Bill.
The Bharat Nyay Yatra will be mostly covered by bus along with short stretches of walking.
The government and opposition parties on Monday reached an agreement to break the impasse in Parliament with dates announced for discussions on the Constitution in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
The agitated mobs managed to partially torched the newly set-up open gym at PT Sports complex at New Lamka which Biren Singh is slated to inaugurate on Friday afternoon, police said.
The injured have been air evacuated to Mantripukhri and search operations are in progress, the Army's SpearCorps headquartered in Dimapur said on Twitter.
The top court also took note of the submissions about objectionable public utterances by some groups and individuals.
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