A mother of three was allegedly "raped and burnt alive" and at least 20 houses were torched by suspected militants in Manipur’s Jiribam district on Thursday night.

The 31-year-old victim was a teacher at a village school. She is survived by her husband, a minor son and two daughters.

According to the complaint filed by the husband with the Jiribam police chief, the woman was “raped and murdered by fully armed Meitei militants” on Thursday night.

A police officer told The Telegraph: “A woman died in the arson. Her charred body is with her family. We are now trying to send the body to Silchar (in Assam) for a post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death. The report will also be required for the ex gratia payment to be made to the bereaved family.”

He said the police were yet to ascertain how she got charred and how many houses were affected in the arson because “the situation is quite tense”.

The CRPF personnel deployed in the village have put the number of houses torched at 20, the police officer said.

“The picture will become clear after we do a ground assessment. The arson took place just before the superintendent of police was trying to initiate peace talks between the Meitei and Hmar people of the district. The CRPF, Assam Rifles and the police have been deployed in the area to maintain order. The situation is tense,” the officer said.

The Hmars, Kukis and Zomis belong to the same Zo ethnicity.

Thursday’s arson broke a brief lull that had followed a gunfight between an armed Kuki-Zo-Hmar group and the security forces on October 19. The group had carried out a “warning attack” on Bodobekra police station a day after an unoccupied school belonging to a Hmar family near Jiribam town was burnt down.

Thursday night’s arson has pushed the number of deaths in the ongoing ethnic conflict between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos to at least 238, besides leaving at least 60,000 displaced since May 3 last year.

The Indigenous Tribes Advocacy Committee (ITAC), a Kuki-Zo civil society organisation working in the Jiribam and Pherzawl districts, has in a statement condemned the attack and the death of the woman and demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits.

The ITAC also iterated “that it has no trust in the Manipur state government machinery including its state forces and police and, therefore, requests the central government to intervene to protect the innocent Kuki-Zomi-Hmar people in Jiribam district and Pherzawl district in Manipur”.

Manipur has had a BJP-led coalition government since 2017.

The Hmar Inpui General Headquarters, the apex body of the Hmars, said in a statement on Friday: “Meitei militants descended upon the peaceful village of Zairawn in Jiribam district, setting fire to 17 homes.”

The Hmar Inpui claimed the victim had lost her life in a brutal act of violence. She was shot in the leg, tortured and burnt alive, it added.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), a conglomerate of recognised tribes in Churachandpur district, also issued a statement claiming that Meitei gunmen had entered the tribal village and “fired indiscriminately at villagers, followed by the burning of homes”.

“While most villagers managed to escape into the adjoining forest, a 31-year-old woman was captured... villagers said. (The victim), a mother of three, was hit by a bullet in the thigh when the shooting began, said her husband. (The victim) was a teacher...,” the ITLF said.

The ITLF statement quoted the traumatised husband as saying: “The Meiteis burst through our door. Some of them told us to leave before they burned our house. Some of them shouted that they should kill us all. I was eventually allowed to leave with my elderly parents and children. But they refused to let me take my wife.”

The charred body of the victim was recovered inside the family’s home in the morning, the statement added.

Rahul slams PM

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not visiting violence-hit Manipur.

“Let me tell you about Manipur. They (BJP) burnt Manipur and till date, the Prime Minister has not gone there. This means they have accepted that there is no state called Manipur. The state burnt due to the BJP’s ideology of dividing society. Wherever they go, they create divisions between communities and groups. That is why we did the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” Rahul said at an election rally in Simdega, Jharkhand.