IMPHAL: Manipur's Moreh turned into a battleground for security forces repelling a militant ambush after sundown on Sunday, leaving the bustling township bordering Myanmar cowering under the onslaught as reports emerged of an unspecified number of casualties on either side.
The state home department would neither confirm nor deny deaths and injuries in the gunfight, which raged from around 7.20pm till late into the night in Moreh's Ward 9, sources said.
The fighting is the latest in a series of confrontations in Moreh, triggered by repeated attacks on state and central forces in and around the township in Tengnoupal district.
On October 31, a subdivisional police officer overseeing work on a helipad was shot and killed. On new year's eve, four police commandos were wounded in a burst of bombs and gunfire targeting a border outpost.
Two days later, another four police commandos and a BSF trooper were wounded when militants suspected to be from a Myanmar-based outfit fired rocket-propelled grenades at a joint patrol.
Dhanabir Maibam, an editor of a
language daily
published in Imphal, was arrested last Friday for his paper's reportage of militants targeting forces deployed along the border with Myanmar. The report was purportedly headlined "Manipur Police lack bullets in Moreh", causing police to charge Maibam with inciting enmity in a state battling an ethnic conflict since May last year.
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