Myanmar National Brought To Imphal With Bullet Injury Dies, Crowds Protest Outside Hospital

Imphal/New Delhi:

A 23-year-old Myanmar national with a bullet injury brought to a hospital in Manipur’s capital Imphal died during treatment, the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) said in a statement today.

Soon, a large crowd gathered outside the hospital when they heard a Myanmar national had been admitted.

Amid the ethnic tension between the hill-majority Kuki tribes and the valley-majority Meiteis, and the allegation by the Meiteis that infiltration by illegal immigrants from Myanmar has been rising sharply, the situation between the crowds and the police turned chaotic, and the police responded by firing a few tear gas shells.

The man identified as Khohantum, a resident of Thanan village in Myanmar near the border with India, was brought to the hospital by the 8 Assam Rifles and the police from Kamjong district in northern Manipur, eight hours after he was shot. Thanan in Myanmar is approximately 160 km from Imphal.

The crowds allegedly demanded that the Myanmar national should be taken outside the state for treatment, news agency PTI reported quoting unnamed officials.

The Kuki-Zo tribes in Manipur, with whom the Meiteis had clashed in the past few months, have familial and ethnic ties with tribes in Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram, with the latter receiving nearly 40,000 refugees from the junta-ruled nation where its military is fighting pro-democracy insurgents.

Police sources said the prevailing trust-deficit led to the crowds becoming agitated when they heard a “Myanmarese Kuki” has been brought to Imphal. The crowds left after holding talks with the police.

The hospital in the statement said the patient was “drowsy, pale and in shock following the bullet injury with stitched wound… Patient was given emergency treatment including IV fluids, oxygen.”

“The patient was advised blood transfusion and transfer to surgical ICU and to manage including surgical intervention further once the patient is stable,” the hospital said in the statement. The patient, however, died before starting blood transfusion at 1.30 pm on Thursday.

Hospital sources said they don’t know the circumstances under which he got the fatal bullet injury.

They said the police will work with the military to get details on where he was picked up as the distance from Imphal to the border is far, and travelling on the highway is risky amid the ethnic tension.

However, the fighting between the junta and ethnic groups in Myanmar has affected many areas including villages along the border with Manipur and Mizoram, leading to a rush of refugees crossing over.

The fighting broke out at the end of October in the north of Shan state, close to the Chinese border, where three ethnic minority groups coordinated an attack against the junta.

The Arakan Army, which is part of this alliance, then launched an offensive last week in Rakhine in the west, at the same time as clashes were raging in Kayah in the east, not far from the Thai border, between anti-junta fighters and the army.

A parallel government formed by pro-democracy politicians to oppose the military, and allied with some insurgent factions, has launched a “Road to Naypyitaw” campaign which it says is aimed at taking control of the capital.

India on Tuesday asked its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Myanmar and advised Indians living there to register with the embassy in Yangon.