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Three people were killed and four others wounded in a bomb attack early yesterday in the northeastern state of Manipur, police said, the second strike in the area in less than a week. |
The blast shook Imphal, the capital of Manipur, which borders Myanmar - an area that has been plagued by separatist violence for decades.
“Three labourers were killed in the blast and four more injured,” senior state police official A Singh said.
An IED (improvised explosive device) was planted close to a bus depot and went off early yesterday morning, Singh added.
The victims were labourers from outside the state who were having tea at a roadside shop when the bomb went off.
No rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack and it was not immediately clear what the motive was.
Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh and Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam Gangmei, who holds the home portfolio, visited the injured at the hospital.
Condemning the incident, the chief minister said adequate compensation would be paid to the families of those killed and the government would bear the cost of treatment of the injured.
Gangmei said: “It was cowardice to attack the unarmed innocent people, to disturb the peace and harmony.”
With yesterday’s incident, the number of non-Manipuris killed in the state this year has gone up to nine.
This is the third such incident in less than a month in Manipur.
Two men were killed and four others injured when militants triggered a bomb blast in a market in Imphal on December 15. A 10-year-old boy was killed in a blast on November 29, a day ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state.
