Gunfight breaks out between Meitei, Kuki village volunteers in Manipur: Police

Security forces have been rushed to the area to bring the situation under control, a police officer said.

Fresh violence was reported from conflict-hit Manipur, where a gunfight broke out between village volunteers of the warring Metei and Kuki communities on Sunday, the state police informed.

The Manipur ethnic conflict has claimed over 200 lives since is began on May 3 last year (Representational Image/ANI)

A senior officer told news agency PTI that the exchange began when "dozens of armed men" opened indiscriminate fire on Koutruk village on the periphery of the Imphal Valley from the adjoining hills in the Kangpokpi district.

Some of the bullets pierced walls of the villagers' homes, the officer said, adding that children, women, and senior citizens were being evacuated to safe areas nearby.

“Pumpis” or locally-made mortar shells were used as well, he further stated.

This initial attack, the officer noted, prompted a retaliation from the village volunteers in Koutruk, leading to the gunfight.

“Security forces are being rushed to the area to bring the situation under control,” he said.

Koutruk has seen multiple intense gunbattles between village volunteers of the two sides since ethnic violence broke out on May 3 last year. The village has been identified as one of the “most vulnerable areas” for gun attacks.

The conflict has claimed more than 200 lives, and left thousands displaced.

Sunday's incident, meanwhile, comes just a day after two soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed, and as many injured, in a militant attack in the Bishnupur district, in the first such targeting here of a central force in almost a year.

More than a dozen unidentified attackers first hurled grenades at the CRPF post shortly after midnight on Saturday, and followed it up with a barrage of bullets, according to officials familiar with the matter, who described it as a “pre-meditated attack”.