Indian police have detained Myanmar refugees and vendors following the fatal shooting of a policeman on Tuesday in the state of Manipur, India, which shares a border with Sagaing Region’s Tamu Township.
As reported in the Hindustan Times, an Indian newspaper, the Indian Police Force said that the officer was hit by a sniper’s bullet while supervising construction of a new helipad in the border town of Moreh.
Joined by India’s Border Guard Force, a commando unit of the Manipur Police Force arrested 44 people in connection with the murder, of whom 32 were citizens of Myanmar, according to a Thursday report in the New Indian Express citing a statement issued by the police.
The New Indian Express also reported that 10 of the detained Myanmar citizens were brought to a detention centre for foreigners in the Manipur Central (Sajiwa) Jail, located some 50 miles from the Myanmar border.
The exact reason for their arrests is still unknown.
While the women and children among the detainees were freed within 24 hours, up to 13 people remain in detention as of Thursday, according to a Myanmar man who had sought refuge in Manipur after the 2021 coup in Myanmar to avoid arrest by the military.
According to a local resident of Moreh, the detainees were not allowed to receive care packages.
“Some of their families sent food and medicine to the victims yesterday during the day. It was allowed until noon yesterday, but they couldn’t do that this morning,” the Moreh local said.
He added that there were refugees among the detainees who had been displaced by ongoing violence in Myanmar, as well as vendors from Tamu, Sagaing Region.
According to another source in Moreh, the police were still making arrests as late as Thursday morning.
“They started combing through entire neighbourhoods,” the source said.
Another Myanmar refugee in the town said, “the police broke in if they didn’t find the people they wanted and ransacked the house.”
“We were already displaced from our homes by war and if we have to flee again now, I can’t even begin to tell you how hard life will be. We didn’t even get to bring enough food, let alone clothes and blankets,” he added.
According to data collected as of March 2023 by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are more than 39,000 Myanmar refugees in the Indian state of Mizoram and over 7,000 in Manipur.
