A team of Manipur Police commandos sent to a border town as reinforcement after a senior police officer was shot dead this morning were ambushed by suspected insurgents on their way, the police said.
Many commandos were injured in the ambush that happened 10 km short of Tengnoupal district.
Troops of the Assam Rifles rushed to the ambush site and rescued the police commandos, government sources said. Many have been taken to hospital.
The India-Myanmar border trading town of Moreh in Tengnoupal, where senior police officer Chingtham Anand was shot dead by a suspected insurgent sniper while he was overseeing the construction of a helipad, is about 115 km from the state capital Imphal.
While the distance is not much on paper for a highway on the plains, the Imphal-Moreh route has many hills, jungles and hairpin bends that significantly raise the risk of ambush by insurgents, sources said.
