GUWAHATI: Assailants dressed in khaki and claiming to be engaged in a “combing operation” entered a Manipur village straddling Kangpokpi and Imphal West districts early Friday and shot dead three people, one of them a 67-year-old woman spending the night in a church building.Two others were wounded in the 4am attack at Khoken village, hours after a bomb exploded outside the private residence of BJP legislator S Kebi Devi in Imphal West, continuing a sequence of ransacking and acts of arson targeting homes of sitting MLAs in the state.According to officials, the gunmen behind the attack in Khoken village came in olive green “military-type vehicles”.

Security forces patrolling a nearby area reached the village on hearing gunshots, leading to a shootout before the assailants escaped.02:26Manipur: Human chain formed in Imphal to demand implementation of NRC and other issues in stateThe three victims were identified as Domkhohoi Haokip, Khaimang Guite and Jangpao Touthang.

While Domkhohoi was asleep in a local church when the gunmen struck, Guite was killed in the courtyard of his house.

Touthang was fatally shot when he and a fellow villager, Thongneh Haokip, were taking an autorickshaw ride to neighbouring Kotlen to fetch essential relief items, officials said.Thongneh took bullets in his thigh but managed to escape.

The second wounded villager was identified as Thangkhojang.

Security forces took both to hospital.07:18Manipur Unrest: Suspected Militants torch 100 houses in Manipur's Serou yillage, ethnic clashes escalateThe latest in a series of indiscriminate shootings and mob attacks came ahead of BJP’s Northeast troubleshooter and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s scheduled visit to Imphal Saturday for a meeting with his Manipur counterpart N Biren Singh and other legislators to find a way to end the ethnic flare-up that has entered its 38th day.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Sarma would be making the trip as the Centre’s representative or as convenor of the BJP-led North-East Democratic Alliance.Since May 3, more than 100 people have been killed, thousands wounded, and scores of villages and homes torched.

Thousands of people fleeing the violence have taken shelter in relief camps or moved elsewhere, including neighbouring Assam, Nagaland and Mizoram.The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum said the attack in Khoken “violated” the peace process initiated by Union home minister Amit Shah.

“We urge the authorities to take decisive actions against the militants,” it said.Additional columns of the Army and paramilitary forces have been deployed in and around Khoken.