Bandh to protest Thoubal killing

Imphal, Jan 15 : Normal life was affected in chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh’s home district, Thoubal, after a joint action committee called a 48-hour bandh from 5am today throughout the district, demanding action against security personnel responsible for killing of an “innocent” man.

Shops and business establishments were closed in most parts of the district. Transport services, too, were disrupted.

Reports reaching here said while normal bus services were suspended today because transport bodies observed “drivers’ day,” a few autorickshaws plied.

There was no report of any violence.

A joint team of the Assam Rifles and police gunned down 30-year-old Moirangthem Tomba Singh, a resident of Langathel Laikon, in an “encounter” at Thoubal’s Mahadev Chingkhong last Sunday.

Police said the man was suspected to be a cadre of the Manipur-based Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) and the joint team recovered one 9mm pistol with five rounds of live ammunition from him.

The family of the deceased, however, rejected the police claim and accused the joint team of “killing” an “innocent” person in “custody”.

Residents of Tomba Singh’s village formed a joint action committee to take up the matter with the government. The family is yet to accept the dead body.

The committee called the bandh demanding a judicial inquiry into the killing and an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh.

“Tomba was a timber trader. He did not have any link with any militant outfit.

He left home on Friday morning and was returning on Sunday morning with Rs 32,000 after his routine trading activities in the house of another timber trader, as Kh. Nandakumar Singh. Some security personnel in civil dress arrested him from a bus parking area at Kakching bazaar on the day he was killed,” Ibemcha Devi, Tomba’s sister-in-law said.

Konsam Thoibi Devi, secretary of the action committee, said the committee would continue its agitation until its demands were met.