GUWAHATI: Ten armed men were killed in a gunfight with security forces in India’s remote northeastern state of Manipur on Monday after trying to attack a police station, officials said.
Manipur has been suffering unrest since last year, when the majority Meitei community and the tribal Kukis clashed after a court ordered the state government to consider extending special economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education enjoyed by the Kukis to the Meiteis as well.
The state of 3.2 million people has been divided into two ethnic enclaves — a valley controlled by the Meiteis and the Kuki-dominated hills — since the conflict began in May 2023.
The areas are separated by a stretch of no-man’s land monitored by federal paramilitary forces. At least 250 people have been killed and some 60,000 displaced.
State police described Monday’s attackers as “armed militants,” saying in a statement that security forces and police had responded fiercely and brought the situation under control after around 45 minutes of heavy gunfire.
Krishna Kumar, deputy commissioner of Manipur’s Jiribam district, where the incident took place, said “miscreants” who attacked a police station had been killed by central security forces.
However, the Hmar Students’ Association, a tribal body representing the Hmars — a sub-group of the Kuki tribal community — alleged that “village volunteers” had been killed in a “premeditated massacre” by federal and state security forces and “Meitei militants.”
Kumar said the region had been tense since last week, when a 31-year-old tribal woman was burned and killed.
One security officer was critically injured, said a local police official who asked not to be named since he was not authorized to speak to media.
Ten killed in India’s Manipur after firefight with security forces
https://arab.news/b5wxn
Ten killed in India’s Manipur after firefight with security forces
- Manipur has been suffering unrest since last year after clash between majority Meitei community, tribal Kukis
- State police say ten “armed militants” were killed in gunfight with security forces after attacking police station
Federal judge accuses Trump administration of ‘terror’ against immigrants in scathing ruling
- The judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens”
- “The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation”
CALIFRONIA: A federal judge has accused the Trump administration of terrorizing immigrants and recklessly violating the law in its efforts to deport millions of people living in the country illegally.
Citing the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens.”
“The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation,” US District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California said in her scathing decision issued late Wednesday.
Sykes ordered the US Department of Homeland Security to provide detained immigrants around the country with notice of her earlier decisions that they may be eligible to seek release on bond.
Under past administrations, people with no criminal record could generally request a bond hearing before an immigration judge while their cases wound through immigration court unless they were stopped at the border. President Donald Trump ‘s White House reversed that policy in favor of mandatory detention.
Sykes, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ruled in November and again in December that the change violated the law and extended her decision to immigrants nationwide. The Republican administration, however, has continued denying bond hearings.
That has prompted thousands of immigrants to file separate petitions in federal court seeking their release. More than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump’s inauguration, according to federal court records analyzed by the AP.
An email Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.
Sykes said Wednesday by violating her decision, the administration had “wasted valuable time and resources” and deprived immigrants of their “liberty, economic stability, and fundamental dignity.”
She also slammed the claim that the immigration crackdown was removing the worst criminals, saying most of the people arrested did not fit that description.
“Americans have expressed deep concerns over unlawful, wanton acts by the executive branch,” she wrote. “Beyond its terror against noncitizens, the executive branch has extended its violence on its own citizens, killing two American citizens— Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.”
