The blast site. Picture by Eastern Projections

Imphal, Nov. 8: Manipur today came close to experiencing the horrors of the pre-Diwali blasts in Delhi?s crowded marketplaces when a powerful explosion shook Imphal?s main shopping complex during the rush hour, injuring 14 people.

Imphal West superintendent of police Clay Khongsai said suspected militants hurled a Chinese grenade at one of the shops along Alu Gali, a narrow alley named after the wholesale potato market at one end. ?The time was 4.30 pm and the market was chock-a-block with people, most of them on the way back home from office. The bomb landed on the road and exploded, causing injuries to those who were in the vicinity.

The injured, 11 of them women, were rushed to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences. Jasmine Begum, a woman vendor who suffered serious head injuries and went into coma, was later shifted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital. Four more injured were stated to be in a critical condition.

The police shot dead a suspected militant at Thangal Bazar, barely 200 metres from the blast site, around 6 pm. He was with two more youths and had thrown a grenade at the police personnel on being asked to stop. The grenade landed in a roadside ditch, but did not explode. The other two youths fled.

Clay said the militants who caused the pandemonium at Alu Gali might have been targeting a particular shop for the owner?s refusal to accede to their demands for money. The police questioned some of the shopowners and their employees, but no one admitted to receiving an extortion notice or threat from anybody. There was no statement from any militant group either.

There have been blasts in the Manipur capital before, but this is the first instance of militants striking at a place teeming with civilians. The cacophony of the grenade explosion prompted people to desert the market in no time. All shops near the blast site downed shutters.

The district police chief denied that a security lapse enabled the suspected militants to hurl the grenade. He said security in and around Imphal town was intensified after the pre-Diwali blasts in New Delhi, especially in view of the Ningol Chakouba festival that was celebrated last week. ?But it is simply impossible to check and frisk each person coming to the city through the various entry points.?

Additional director-general of police (law and order) J.C. Dabbas said immediately after the blast that Imphal had been ?sealed?. Opposition leader Okram Joy Singh was among the first to reach the blast site.

Earlier in the day, two members of the militant Kangleipak Communist Party were shot dead in an encounter with Assam Rifles personnel in Imphal East.

An Assam Rifles official said the paramilitary force arrested a member of the same group from Sawombung, under Lamlai police station, yesterday. He said the militant, Chougomba alias Upendra, was the outfit?s district commander.