Imphal, March 3 : Three migrant murders in the past 48 hours have prompted the Okram Ibobi Singh government to consider opening relief camps for settlers even though all police stations have been put on a red alert.
A barber, a juice vendor and labourer — all three from Bihar — were gunned down by unidentified assailants in Imphal West since Saturday, with the last attack being reported around 8pm last night.
“We are considering opening relief centres for the migrant workers if the situation worsens. If any migrant requests the government for a safer place to live, we are ready to open at least four temporary camps for them in secured areas of the city,” a senior police official said.
Since the migrants work in places where the government may find it difficult to provide security, the next best thing would be to set up camps.
No one, however, has approached the government till now. The government had opened relief camps in March last year when gunmen killed 15 migrants.
The police headquarters gave instructions to deputy inspector-generals of police, commanding officers of IRB, Manipur Rifles and district superintendents of police, to step up security measures.
“We are tightening security in places where migrants are concentrated. We have asked the police officers to enforce night curfew strictly,” the official said.
Gunshots pierced the curfew when the unidentified assailants attacked Sajivan Bahadur, a labourer, in his house in Chingamakha locality at 8 last night.
Night curfew — from 6pm to 6am — was imposed last month to contain unruly protesters after the killing of sub-divisional officer Thingnam Kishan, his driver Rajen Sharma and chainman Token Singh by cadres of the NSCN(I-M).
The other two attacks, on the barber and the juice vendor, took place during the day.
A youth walked into a saloon on the outskirts of Imphal city on Saturday, asked for a haircut, and then shot dead one of the barbers.
Barbers in and around Imphal kept their shutters down for the second consecutive day today to protest the killing.
After yesterday’s audacious murder of a juice seller in a market, most settlers did not venture out of their houses today or remained within Imphal city, which is already heavily fortified.