NEW DELHI, Dec 31: Suspected tribal rebels gunned down a top police official and his deputy in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur on Saturday.

Police Inspector-General Tunglut Thangthaum and his deputy, inspector Khamkhan Jam, were killed instantly when the guerillas riddled their car with gunfire in the state’s Bishenpur district.

Thangthaum was the police intelligence chief in Manipur, one of India’s seven northeastern states where various tribal insurgent groups are campaigning for separate homelands.

Two constables accompanying the police officials were critically injured in the attack, a police spokesman said in the state capital of Imphal, adding the rebels escaped in a truck after the ambush.

None of Manipur’s several ethnic tribal guerilla organizations have claimed responsibility for the ambush.

The Indian government reacted sharply to the killing of Mr Thangthuam, a recipient of several national police awards.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ‘expressed shock at this cowardly act and conveys his condolences to the family of the officer’, a statement released by his office said in New Delhi.

Tens of thousands of people have died in insurgency-linked violence in the northeastern states since 1947. —AFP