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A mob stormed into the compound of a major government hospital in Imphal on Thursday after a Myanmar citizen who fled the fighting in his country was taken there for treatment. Police deployed teargas to disperse the mob.
A large crowd had gathered at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) in the afternoon after word spread that the Myanmar national was admitted there. A rumour that he is a “Kuki militant” had also spread.
Police said the man, identified as Khoantum, a resident of Thanan in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, died at the hospital on Thursday afternoon of bullet injuries that he suffered during the fighting in Myanmar.
JNIMS medical superintendent Dr Lokeshwar Singh did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
According to a security source, Khoantum was a civilian who crossed the porous international border into Manipur after getting injured in Myanmar. He had sought medical aid at an Assam Rifles post in Kamjong district at around 2 am.
“He was given first aid there and was handed over to the Manipur Police at around 3.55 am on Thursday. After that, they would have taken him to Imphal for further treatment,” the official said.
In the ongoing conflict between the Meitei and Kuki-Zomi communities in Manipur, a rigid division has been formed between the areas dominated by either community – with Meitiei people unable to go to areas dominated by the Kuki-Zomis and vice-versa. At the same time, a dominant refrain among the Meitei community – who are in majority in Imphal, where JNIMs is located – is that uncontrolled illegal immigration from Myanmar, especially of Chin people, who are of the same ethnicity as the Kuki-Zomis, is the root cause of the instability in the state.
Myanmar has been rocked by an escalation in violence since October 27, with the launching of coordinated attacks against the military junta in different parts of the country. As a result of this escalation, which saw fighting also reaching areas bordering India, more than 5,000 people have sought shelter in Mizoram.
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