ITLF drone footages expose involvement of Kukis militants
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, June 11 2023:
Involvement of heav-ily armed Kuki militants in the ongoing violence has es-tablished from the footages of drones suspected to be utilised and handled by vol-unteers of Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF).
Even though there were strong suspicion about in-volvement of well-armed Kuki militants in the attacks at Meetei inhabited villages and state forces during the course of the violence span-ning over a month, the same was shrouded in controversy or mystery as Kuki organisa-tions claimed that the attacks were carried out by village defence volunteers in de-fence.
However, drone foot-ages of ITLF make it crystal clear that Kai militants were at the forefront of the ongo-ing violence.
Another footage uploaded by ITLF show that the present violence erupted after Kukis carried out pre-planned attacks on Meetei inhabited villages.
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Few days back, security forces recovered a drone used by ITLF drone squad at some places in Sugnu-Se-rou area and Bishnupur district.
When footages of the recovered drone were retrieved, it was found out that Kuki militants made a recce of deployment and movement of Manipur police and possibly other central forces and Meetei people in Sugnu-Serou areas before carrying out the attacks.
The drone had a video about de-ployment and condition of state force before carrying out attacks, another video after houses in the area were torched and one more video about villages purportedly targeted for attack.
Apart from this, identity card sig-nifying ITLF drone squad of the drone operator could be seen clearly in the video as also images of youth wearing civilian cloths and hanging ITLF IDs on their neck.
Apart from ITLF drone squad, footages of the drone also showed many bunkers set up by Kuki militants atop hills as also images of Kuki militants holding LMC, snip-er rifles and M-16 rifles.
All the camps where well-armed Kuki militants are seen in the footages are close to Meetei villages already attacked and had fire-fight with state force.
Apart from this, the drone also had footage of the area where Bishnupur dis-trict police commando aban-doned a bullet proof vehicle (Gypsy) due to mechanical failure.
A team of Bishnupur district police commando who went to retrieve the vehicle on the next day was attacked by Kuki militants and five police commandos were injured in the attack.
Ever since the eruption of violence on May 3, there had been unabated incidents of firing and torching of houses of Meetei villages located close to hills.
Nevertheless, Kuki organisations and intellectuals repeated-ly claimed that firing were done by village defence volunteers to defend attacks from the Meetei side.
Notably, majority of persons injured in the fire-fights were hit by bullets fired from automatic assault rifles.
Apart from this, commando and BSF personnel killed during the fire-fights were hit either by bullets fired from sniper rifles or automatic assault rifles.
Among the deceased security personnel was one BSF soldier on duty on an elevated sentry post in Serou village who was hit on the neck.
The soldier was wearing bullet proof vest.