Unknown gunmen shot at the father of National People’s Party (NPP) candidate, Lourembam Sanjoy Singh, contesting from Andro assembly constituency Friday night.
The incident reportedly took place around 11 pm near the residence of the candidate while the victim was discussing election-related matters with supporters of the candidate.
The victim, 74-year-old Lourembam Samjai, received a bullet injury on his right shoulder. He is currently undergoing treatment at Shija Hospitals.
NPP leaders, including its national president Conrad K Sangma and Deputy Chief Minister Y Joykumar Singh visited the injured candidate’s father.
Talking to the media on the sideline of their visit, Sangma said that pre-poll violence is intensifying in Manipur. He said that he has visited Manipur five times since 2002 in connection with election but he had never seen the kind of pre-poll violence occurring nowadays.
Considering that controlling the situation is the need of the hour, NPP will draw the attention of all concerned and higher authorities such as the CEO of Manipur, Election Commission of India and MHA, the CM of Meghalaya said.
He strongly condemned the attack on NPP candidate, L Sanjoy stating that “the incident simply reflected the frustration of certain individuals. In democracy, we believe in the casting of votes through speech and expression using their own conscience. As such this kind of behaviour is strongly condemnable.”
He further said that authorities concerned should take cognizance of the prevailing unwanted scenario of the state as it would hinder in conducting a free and fair election if such situation continues.
Joykumar said that the incident occurred Friday night at Andro constituency where an NPP candidate was attacked when he was sitting with his father and some Meira Paibis. Carrying out pre-poll violence has become a habit nowadays as the recent incident wasn’t the first time and is occurring in other constituencies too. Both people of the state and politicians should take the matter of pre-poll violence seriously, he expressed.
Later, a delegation of the party led by Sangma met the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manipur in connection with the attack.
“Apprised the Chief Electoral Officer of Manipur about the attack on our candidate’s father last night and on the series of incidents that took place around Manipur causing great concern for the safety of our candidates and the people,” tweeted Sangma.
The incident comes a week after a low-intensity bomb was exploded near the residence of NPP workers in Khabeisoi village in Imphal East district.
Earlier, the party had also issued a statement drawing the attention of the authority that its party candidates and workers are abused and intimidated in a targeted manner by several militant groups in favour of BJP.
This is the third incident of gun-related violence that occurred in the state ahead of polls. A student was shot dead in poll related violence in Heirok village in Thoubal district last December. The second incident occurred in Samurou in the second week of January wherein two persons including a close aid of Manipur Agriculture Minister was shot dead by unknown gunmen.
