A panorama of Bishnupur’s Meitei-dominated Terakhong village spanned in front of 15 self-proclaimed Kuki ‘volunteers’ as they lugged their single- or double-barrel guns to a bunker in P Geljang village of Churachandpur district on Thursday.
It was around 4 pm when a sniper shot whizzed above the bunker. The ‘volunteers’ ran for cover. The ‘volunteers’ sat on their haunches behind the bunker, while the commuters on the road near the bunker jumped into a natural drain along the hill. The gunfire from the valley intensified within the next few minutes. Shots flew past the bunker, hitting trees or disappearing in the air. But the group stayed in place. Those positioned behind sandbags lit cigarettes or bidis, peering out to locate the origin of the gunfire.
