Manipur Police recover most arms, ammunition looted by militants on Feb 8

A day after armed cadres of the militant outfit Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) looted several arms and a large quantity of ammunition from an outpost of the Manipur Rifles in the state's Thoubal district, the police personnel recovered most of the arms and ammunition and also arrested an extremist, an official said on Sunday.

A police officer said that on Saturday night, around 30 armed cadres of the suspected KCP equipped with sophisticated weapons, breached the security layers at one police outpost at Kakmayai in Thoubal District and overpowered the police personnel deployed at the post.

The armed group came in three vehicles and looted at least six SLRs, three AK rifles and a large cache of ammunition from the outpost, he said.

The security personnel immediately launched a search operation and detained a KCP cadre identified as Hijam Ningthem Singh (49).

During the further course of investigation and relentless search operations at different locations, Manipur Police recovered on Sunday afternoon recovered three AK rifles and five SLRs, which were out of the nine looted arms, at Ngamukhong foothill area.

Further, as a part of follow-up operations, security forces conducted huge combing operations around Ningel, Malom, Toubul and Langathel.

In the operation, one hideout of KCP was busted at Langathel Chingkhong area and recovered a large cache of ammunition and incriminating documents which included 48 live rounds of Insas and AK ammunition, 25 empty cases of assorted ammunition, grenades, and huge cache of different types of ammunition.

The police also recovered a binocular, one Gypsy car, five bullet-proof vests, three armour helmets and various military fatigues and other miscellaneous items.

Various official and unofficial reports said that during the ethnic riots which broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, over 6,000 different types of sophisticated arms and lakhs of diverse ammunition were looted from the police stations and police outposts by the mobs, attackers and militants.

However, a significant number of looted arms and ammunition have been recovered so far and searches by the Central and state security forces are on to recover the remaining weapons.

These arms have been playing a very critical role in exacerbating the violence in Manipur with both village volunteers and militants in both the valley and hilly areas possessing huge sophisticated arms and ammunition.

Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, who submitted his resignation on Sunday, the Home Department and many other political dignitaries on a number of occasions urged the looters to return the looted arms and ammunition to the police, otherwise, the appropriate authorities would take legal action.