Imphal, Nov 16 (IANS): Three bodies were found in Manipur’s Jiribam district but police could not confirm whether the bodies are among the six people missing in the same district since November 11.

A police official in Imphal said that the bodies, found near a river late on Friday evening, have not yet been identified.

The bodies are being taken to the Silchar Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem, the official said.

Six people -- three women and three children, from the same family remained missing since the Borobekra (in Jiribam district) violence, in which 10 ‘Kuki militants were killed’ in a fierce encounter with the CRPF.

The three women and the three children, belonging to the majority Meitei community, had been living in a relief camp set up near the Borobekra police station after violence gripped the Jiribam district since June.

The six people who had been missing since Monday, were an elderly woman, her two daughters and three minor grandchildren.

Since the disappearance of the six people, many organisations including the Meitei-dominated groups have been claiming that these six people were kidnapped by the armed militants, who had attacked the CRPF camp on Monday morning.

Following the attack, the CPRF retaliated and 10 ‘militants’ were gunned down in the encounter.

Tribal organisations, however, claimed that the 10 slain people were not militants, they were ‘Kuki Village Volunteers protecting villagers’.

The police official said that during the search operations after the fierce encounter in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians -- Maibam Kesho Singh, 75, and Laishram Barel, 61 -- were found.

He said that another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station while the six people remained untraced so far.

The two victims and the remaining two, found alive, belong to the Meitei community.