A huge fire broke out at a building near the high-security secretariat complex in Manipur's capital Imphal today. The building is just a few hundred metres from the official bungalow of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, the police said.
Four fire trucks came to the site and doused the blaze this evening, the police said, adding they are checking what caused the fire.
The building that caught fire is in the same complex as the main office of the Kuki Inpi, a civil society group of the Kuki tribes that has been supporting the call by another Churachandpur-based Kuki group called the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) for a "separate administration" carved out of Manipur.
The incident happened within a week of fresh violence igniting in Manipur's Jiribam district, bordering Assam, between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the hill-dominant Hmar tribes.