Four killed after violence flares in India's Manipur state

At least four people were killed, two of them by police fire, in India's northeastern state of Manipur on Tuesday, officials said, after months of relative calm.

Two children from the mostly Hindu Meitei community were killed after a bomb exploded in a house in the Meitei-dominated Bishnupur district, the officials and the chief minister's office said.

Later on Tuesday, police opened fire to control a crowd that had stormed a camp belonging to security forces, killing two people, the state's interior minister, Govindas Konthoujam said.

Clashes first broke out in May 2023 between Manipur's dominant, mostly Hindu Meitei community and the mainly Christian Kuki tribes over economic benefits and job quotas. In all some 260 people have been killed and more than 60,000 displaced.

The children killed in the latest unrest belonged to the Meitei community, whose members alleged the attack was carried out by Kuki militants. Kuki groups denied the accusations.

The state's Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh said the perpetrators were yet to be identified and that the bomb attack was the "handiwork of individuals or groups with an interest in disturbing the prevailing peace".

Authorities imposed a curfew in the regional capital Imphal and surrounding areas and suspended internet services for five days.

-Reporting by Tora Agarwala, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; editing by Barbara Lewis/Reuters