Hours after Rahul Gandhi's visit, trouble erupts in Manipur district

GUWAHATI: Arsonists torched the home of a prominent tribal leader in Manipur's Jiribam Tuesday, stoking unrest in the district hours after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's outreach in what is a new pocket of discord in the ethnic conflict that erupted in May last year.
The destroyed house belonged to Seijathang Khangsai, a former secretary of the tribal organisation Manipur, at Phaitol village.They declared a 12-hour shutdown in allinhabited areas from 6am Wednesday. It said the presence of central security forces had gone from instilling a sense of security in the district's tribal population to being "critically alarming" for them.
In Kangpokpi, hundreds protested against the arrest of five men by security forces. Three of them were taken into custody during a joint operation by central and state forces at Hengjol village. The other two were arrested in Jiribam.