Guwahati: Videos Assam Rifles troops rescuing Manipur Police commandos pinned down by insurgents with heavy gunfire in an ambush on a highway have surfaced online.
The militants hiding in a hill had ambushed a convoy of the Manipur Police commandos on the highway between the Imphal and the India-Myanmar border town Moreh on October 31.
The commandos were on the way to Moreh, 115 km from Imphal, as reinforcements after a senior police officer was shot dead by an insurgent sniper while he was overseeing the construction of a helipad in the border town, which saw intense clashes between the hill-majority Chin-Kuki tribes and the valley-majority Meiteis in the past few months.
In the videos, a group of Assam Rifles troops inside an armoured Casspir mine-resistant vehicle slowly approached a bend on the highway.
As soon as the road turned straight, a hail of bullets are heard ricocheting off the armoured vehicle.
A long line of Manipur Police commando SUVs are seen on the side of the road, pinned down by insurgent gunfire from above the hill.
“Look at the top (of the hill), look, look,” a soldier is heard telling his squad inside the Casspir, just before more bullets ricocheted off the armoured vehicle. “This is accurate fire. Go back a bit. Give the police covering fire. They need covering fire,” the soldier is heard shouting amid heavy gunfire outside.
Another video shows a soldier shouting at the commandos, who were still engaging the insurgents hiding in the forested hillside, to quickly run inside the armoured vehicle for safety as they were on a lower ground and easy targets for the insurgents. While many commandos kept firing from what was a tactically bad spot, one of them managed to jump onto the Casspir.
“Don’t worry, we are here. Don’t worry,” an Assam Rifles combat medic is heard telling a commando who was hit in the leg.
Another commando comes crawling towards the vehicle and is quickly pulled inside by the soldiers. “He has many bullet injuries. Attend to him first,” a soldier tells the medic.
“Chinta mat karo, sab theek ho jayega (don’t worry, everything will be fine),” the medic says as he puts a tourniquet on the commando’s leg to stop the bleeding. All the while the soldiers gave covering fire to the commandos.
Although the videos indicated total chaos inside the Casspir, with blood on the metal floor and the seats stained with red, the soldiers communicated and directed return fire with professional calm as the armoured vehicle drove away from the ‘kill zone’.
The Assam Rifles troops took three injured commandos to a hospital that day. There were no casualties in the ambush.