8 injured in Manipur bomb explosion

Seven labourers of the 25 BN Border Roads Task Force and a young girl were wounded when the People Liberation Army (PLA) insurgents detonated a remote controlled bomb at Harkhui village in Ukhrul district bordering Myanmar on Monday afternoon.

Seven-year-old Sonia, who was in a BRTF truck along with her father, was seriously injured and had to undergo leg amputation. Condition of three labourers is said to be serious.

The labourers are engaged in the construction of the roads in the mountainous areas of the district. Additional police and paramilitary forces are combing the areas. However police fear that the insurgents had fled to their camps in no man’s land soon after the explosion of the bomb.

In a statement issued on Monday night the PLA which is the military wing of the Revolutionary People’s Front said that the Indian government has been sending its agents in the interior areas as a “spy force”. On the basis of inputs supplied by these forces, many insurgents had been arrested and killed in the past. It further said that the attack was a part of the “freedom movement”.

Police have registered a case. No arrest has been made.