The Manipur Chief minister’s ‘War on Drugs’ had many takers and there is a beeline of local influencers like village chiefs coming forward in support of the clarion call by N. Biren Singh on drugs.

But all is not well, it seems, as the drug lords are trying their best to restrategize the business. Drugs business is big money and Manipur is infamous for being one of the routes of this menace being transported through its soil from the international porous border it has with Myanmar as well as local cultivation of Poppy in the Hill Districts of Manipur as a source of income.

In conjecture to this, the village chief of Manipur’s  Kangpokpi district in Lhungtin Sub Division was shot dead by unknown miscreants on 6 June midnight. He was a chief of the village who had had recently came forward to support the chief minister’s war on drugs.

The village chief was identified by security forces as  Zilhem Khongsai 57, and he was the chief of Naphai village near Molkon Bazar, located around 9 Km from Saikul Sub Divisional Headquarters.

As per a source, a few groups of unknown miscreants took the village chief from his residence at around 11:50 pm where he was taken out and was shot by them a few meters away from his residence.

One of his relatives narrated that he had called for help while he was taken and few moments later they heard a gunshot. On rushing to the spot they found the chief laying in a pool of blood while he struggled for breath. He was immediately rushed to the local hospital but was declared brought dead, by the doctor.

As per initial reports, the bullet injury mark is not suspected to be of automatic weapons and a  bullet injury mark was seen below the  left chest in the heart portion

The family members filed an FIR at Saikul Police Station on the same night. The police later recovered the body of the deceased and deposited the body for post-mortem at RIMS Morgue