Police Officer Shot By Sniper At State Helipad Site

India: A Manipur Police officer was shot dead by suspected insurgents while he was overseeing the construction of a helipad in Manipur’s Moreh, a trading town on the border with Myanmar, the Manipur government said in a statement today after an emergency meeting of the state cabinet over the killing.

The unprecedented attack on the helipad project this morning marks a sharp increase in hostilities between the security forces and insurgents amid the semblance of hard-won normalcy in ethnic violence-hit Manipur.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Chingtham Anand was rushed to a local clinic in the restive hill-majority town that saw intense ethnic clashes between the Kuki tribes and the Meiteis in the past few months. He died during treatment, the police said.

The bullet wound indicated the police officer was shot with a large-calibre marksman or sniper rifle from a concealed position quite a distance away, a police officer in Moreh told NDTV on phone, requesting anonymity. The police could not retaliate immediately as the general direction from where the precision shot came has civilian buildings, the officer said.

Subsequently, the security forces launched an operation in the area to neutralise the threat, sources said.

The helipad, being built jointly by the state forces and the Border Security Force (BSF),  will be used to transport state forces as the road from the state capital Imphal to Moreh is blocked at many places by miscreants, people familiar with the matter said.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh in a post on X, formerly Twitter, said he was “deeply saddened by the cold-blooded killing” of the police officer. “… His dedication to serve and protect the people will always be remembered. The perpetrators will be brought to justice,” Mr Singh said in the post.

After the emergency cabinet meeting, the Manipur government in the statement said it “condemns the dastardly act in the strongest terms” as communities across Manipur have been exercising restraint to bring peace for nearly two months now, following the ethnic violence that broke out on May 3 in the hill district Churachandpur before it spread to other districts.

The Manipur government in the statement said it has approved a compensation of ₹ 50 lakh to the family of the police officer and a government job to an eligible family member.