New Delhi: Only 30 percent of the weapons stolen last year from police armouries and stations in Manipur have been recovered so far, Army chief General Manoj Pande said Thursday, adding that efforts are underway to recover the stolen weapons.
Gen Pande was speaking at the annual press conference in New Delhi ahead of the 76th Army Day, to be celebrated on 15 January.
As ThePrint reported earlier, mobs raided police armouries and stations in Manipur, primarily in the Imphal valley, and made away with approximately 5,600 arms and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition after ethnic violence broke out in the state last May.
Security forces later launched a massive combing operation to recover the stolen arms.
During his press conference Thursday, Gen Pande said a bid to recover the stolen weapons was ongoing in concert with the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). “Our deployment, our operation in Manipur is synergized and done in coordination with the state administration (adhering to) the security mechanism which was created post the situation,” he said.
Manipur has been engulfed in an ethnic conflict between Kukis and Meiteis for nearly a year now. Violence erupted between the majority Meitei community based in the Imphal Valley and the Kuki-Zo tribal community, based in the surrounding hills, on 3 May last year.
On Thursday, three persons who went collecting firewood the previous evening were found dead in Churachandpur — a day after four others from Akasoi in Bishnupur went missing. The violence has claimed an estimated 180 lives since last May.
Referring to peace accords signed between the central government, the Manipur government and two armed groups — the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) of Manipur and United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) — last year, Gen Pande hailed it as a positive development. He added that the Northeast witnessed “positive developments in the past year because of the proactive policies of the government and the peace talks”.
Violence in the Northeast has come down, he said, adding: “Of course, the state of Manipur did witness violence starting in the month of May last year. Our efforts alongside these (security) agencies continue to make sure that normalcy is established and the security situation remains stable.”
One of the Army’s focus areas has been to work alongside other government departments and agencies, he said. “We have been proactively engaging with them, reaching out to them, purely with an aim to achieve better outcomes,” the Army chief added.
On deployment of central forces in Manipur, he said, “I would say the Indian Army units and the Assam Rifles, all our units, have given a very good account of themselves to be operating under the current circumstances. I would say they have exhibited a lot of restraint sometimes against provocations in those situations wherein it has been very easy to get provoked.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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