GUWAHATI: A wounded seven-year-old boy of mixed Kuki-Meitei parentage burned to death along with his mother and another woman inside an ambulance taking him to hospital after it was waylaid and set ablaze by a mob in the Iroisemba area of Imphal last Sunday, sources said on Wednesday amid police and the state government’s continued silence on the attack. Tongsing Hangsing, his Meitei mother Meena and their neighbour Lydia Lourembam were apparently being escorted from an Assam Rifles camp to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal by a team of Manipur Police commandos, led by an officer of the rank of SP.
The escorts and the driver allegedly fled, leaving the ambulance and the three passengers at the mercy of the mob. A report submitted to the Centre on the incident is said to have pointed to a possible leak of information to Kuki groups regarding movement of injured belonging to the Meitei community. The report purportedly recalls how the police, under whose protection the ambulance was moving, put up a fight but were outnumbered by the Kuki attackers.The victims were residents of Kangchup village in Kangpokpi district. They were among 30 people displaced by the ethnic feuding and sheltered in an Assam Rifles camp near their village since May 4, a day after the violence started.

“On Sunday, there was firing by the warring sides near the Assam Rifles camp, and a splinter from an iron rod struck by a bullet ricocheted to hit Tongsing in the head. He was immediately given medical assistance and his condition stabilised. It was later decided that he be sent to Leimakhong town, but police recommended going to RIMS instead. An SP-rank officer came down with security to escort the boy to Imphal,” a source said. Till late Wednesday, nobody seemed to know what happened to the victims’ bodies.
A report submitted to the Centre is said to have pointed to a possible leak of information to Kuki groups regarding movement of injured belonging to the Meitei community.