Recovery of looted arms tops Govt priority
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, September 23 2023:
Though a very challenging task, the recovery of thousands of looted guns and ammunition is now the top priority for the authorities in ethnic violence-hit Manipur as less than one third of such weapons have been recovered in the past 115 days.
Many senior in-service and retired police and army officers have also said that recovery of the huge number of looted arms must be undertaken on a priority basis.
According to various reports, during the ethnic riots which broke out on May 3, over 4,000 different types of sophisticated arms and lakhs of different types of ammunition were looted from the police stations and police outposts by the mobs, attackers and militants.
A top police official said that so far 1365 sophisticated firearms and 15,100 various types of ammunition have been recovered from different parts of the state.
The Manipur government in its latest directive on Friday night warned the people who have looted arms to return them within 15 days, otherwise strict legal and security measures would be taken against them.
The directive said that after October 6, the central and the state security forces would launch a comprehensive search operation all over the state to recover the looted weapons, and all persons associated with any illegal weapons will be dealt with strictly, as per the law.
Terming this as a serious matter, police officials said that using these looted arms, some cadres of different groups and miscreants extorted money from the people through intimidation and abduction threats.
The Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC) headed by Justice Utpalendu Bikas Saha (retired) earlier this month in a letter to Chief Secretary Vineet Joshi made six recommendations, including recovery of looted arms and ammunition.
Accepting the recommendations of the MHRC, the state government has directed the Director General of Police to recover the arms and ammunition, looted during the ethnic riot from the armouries of the security forces and the Churachandpur gun shop.
In a fresh development in the trouble-torn state, insurgents have acquired vehicles and modified them to resemble those used by the Central paramilitary forces like the Assam Rifles.
The Churachandpur-based headquarters of 27 Sector of Assam Rifles, in a confidential letter to the Superintendent of police of Churachandpur district said that immediate actions should be taken against such illegal modification of vehicles to avoid any kind of adverse incident.
The Assam Rifles has requested the Manipur police to take prompt action against the insurgents who are using the vehicles converted to resemble the TATA 407 vehicle, being used by Assam Rifles by painting the Assam Rifles insignia.
On September 16, the Manipur police arrested five persons in Imphal with looted weapons and wearing camouflage uniforms.
On Friday, the Manipur police displayed a fake identity card, posted on X (formerly Twitter): "Fake I-card.
Manipur Police has not issued such a card.
Necessary legal action will be initiated" .