A truck driver from West Bengal was killed and a police constable was injured after unidentified gunmen ambushed an escorted goods vehicle in Manipur’s Ukhrul district on Friday, the chief minister’s office said.The driver, 65-year-old Nitish Das from Hooghly district, died on the spot, PTI reported. He was reportedly transporting rice for the Food Corporation of India from Imphal to Ukhrul.The injured constable sustained a bullet injury to his knee. The news agency identified him as 34-year-old Disingam Maringmei from Imphal West district.The attack took place on NH202 between Leingangching and TM Kasom under the jurisdiction of Litan Police Station, the chief minister’s office said. The highway connects Imphal with Ukhrul town.Personnel of the Border Security Force, the Central Reserve Police Force and the state police have been escorting trucks on the Imphal-Ukhrul highway, PTI quoted an unidentified district administration official as saying.“Shortly before the incident, local protesters blocked roads at Shangkai to prevent the movement of the trucks,” the official told the news agency.Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh said that the ambush “seemed to be carried out by vested interest groups with the ill-motives to derail the initiatives of the state government to restore peace and normalcy in the state”, his office said in a statement.Singh added that the security forces had launched search and cordon operations in nearby areas to identify and arrest those responsible for the incident.The incident took place in the same area where two Naga men were killed on April 18.The developments on Friday came amid tensions between the Kukis and the Nagas in Ukhrul that had erupted in February after an alleged assault involving members of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki-Zo communities escalated into clashes.Since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023, at least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.Also read: ‘We thought peace was coming’: Manipur’s buffer zones are back in grip of violence