Ultimatum to return all illegal arms : How about guns of SoO cadres ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 26, 2025 -

The Meitei Alliance has a point, a solid point and it has verbalised the felt but unexpressed sentiments of the people.

In reminding Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla of the indispensability of applying the drive to collect all illegal arms equally across the State, the Meitei Alliance has squarely raised the question, ‘what about the guns used by cadres under the SoO pact and what about the arms from across the border ?’

No doubt the notification to voluntarily return illegal arms within a stipulated time applies to all, but this still does not answer the question, ‘how about the arms being used by cadres belonging to outfits under the SoO pact ?’

To put it more bluntly from where did the guns, which decorated some ‘daring souls’ while playing football at Kangpokpi some time back, come from ?

True there has been a report of some of the gun wielding ‘football players’ having been arrested, but what about the arms which dangled so ‘dangerously’ from the shoulders of the genius ‘football players ?’

As The Sangai Express has been maintaining for long, the arms looted from the police armouries have been accounted for, with even Union Home Minister Amit Shah issuing strict instructions to retrieve all the arms, but not a word has ever been said on the arms used to attack Meitei settlements at the foothills.

From where have the guns used to attack Meitei settlements come ?

From where did the sniper gun used to kill police officer Chingtham Anand at Moreh on October 31, 2023 come ?

Why have the Delhi mandarins preferred to keep a stoic silence on this ?

How about the arms used by the Kuki militants to attack the relief centre at Jiribam last year ?

Is Delhi and the Central security force going to say that the Kuki militants attacked the Jiribam relief centre with country made and pumpi guns ?

True some arms have been surrendered at Churachandpur and while this is acknowledged as a positive move, it needs to be kept in mind that not all of them could be arms missing from the armouries.

Moreover police armouries in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi are not as well stocked as those at Imphal and the guns snatched from such armouries could not have been that much.

This does not however mean that the Kuki militants are short on fire power and this brings one to the question of ‘how about the arms of the SoO cadres ?’

Or is it going to be a case of letting the SoO cadres keep their arms, despite the condition that all arms should be deposited at the safehouse in the designated camps ?

Disarming the people. This is obviously the first step to be taken up to make any talk of normalcy meaningful, but not when any disarming drive is seen is being targeted at only one community.

This point would not have gone missing to Raj Bhavan, but it is equally important to demonstrate that it has taken note of the reality and will act accordingly.

Arms were openly brandished on May 3, 2023 when gun wielding elements could be seen among the crowd after the Tribal Solidarity March to proceed towards Torbung outside the periphery of Churachandpur town.

And this is where the first seeds of the violence were sown, but Delhi has conveniently overlooked this fact.

It was to meet the challenges posed by such gun wielding elements that mobs took over and looted guns from the police armouries in Imphal during the initial days of the violence.

Hence the logic and reasoning in the stand that any move to disarm the public should be equally applied to the hills and the valley.

Merely disarming one would amount to rendering one side sitting ducks and this is something no one would be willing to accept.

Apart from the move to disarm the public and recover all illegal arms, Raj Bhavan ought to pay attention to the SoO designated camps and ensure that all the arms of the outfits are returned to the safehouses there.

Imphal and the valley will not be convinced by the act of some guns being surrendered and the situation also calls for a regular update on how many guns are missing from the designated camps and how many guns have come back.

How about the cadres ? Aren’t they supposed to be inside the camps ?