Imphal: A “pork seller”, an “office assistant” at an e-commerce company, a “helper in a departmental store”, a “caretaker of a drug rehabilitation centre” and a person identified by the police as a trained, but dormant, People’s Liberation Front (PLF) operative — these are the five men from Manipur’s majority Meitei community who were at the centre of the latest spate of violence in the state that has been rocked by clashes between its Meitei and tribal Kuki communities since May.
The arrest of the five by Manipur Police, for allegedly roaming around in police uniforms, armed with sophisticated weaponry, including an INSAS Rifle and a self-loading rifle (SLR), in the state’s Kongba area Saturday, trigged fresh tensions after weeks of relative calm, with residents of Imphal valley — where the majority of the Meitei community is concentrated — pressuring the police to release the five, or “face violence”.
All five received bail Friday.
The men — identified as Moirangthem Anand Singh (45), Athokpam Kajit (39), Loukrakpam Michael Mangangcha (30), Konthoujam Romojit Meitei (28) and Keisham Johnson (35) by the police, are all said to be residents of Imphal. Police sources told ThePrint that a case has been registered against the five under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Officials Secrets Act and Arms Act.
While the police claim that the five were “caught red-handed, walking with police weapons in uniform”, according to Imphal residents ThePrint spoke to they are “village defence volunteers”, who picked up arms only to defend their community against Kukis, and so must be released.
Police sources told ThePrint, however, that Anand Singh was a trained member of the PLF, a secessionist group, and had been arrested six times between 1997 and 2009. He subsequently joined the Kangleipak Communist Party (Noyon), a banned outfit, and was arrested again in 2010 for extortion from a government office. He has also been detained under the National Security Act, the sources added.
Talking about the other four, one of the sources said Kajit was “drug addict”, who manages a private drug rehabilitation centre at Thoubal, and does not have a criminal history.
About the other three, the source said, Michael Mangangcha works as a “pork seller”, Romojit Meitei, “is an office assistant at an e-commerce company” and Johnson, “a helper at a departmental store”. These three too have no previous criminal record, the source added.
According to police sources, it was Anand Singh, who brought together the others to form the group and also gave them training in using weapons.
“Anand Singh and Kajit had met at a programme of Narcotics Anonymous. When violence broke out in Manipur, they decided to come together, make a team and arrange some weapons,” the source said.
According to the source, someone approached Anand Singh at a relief camp — one of many set up across the state since the beginning of the violence — with a broken weapon, which he repaired owing to his knowledge of arms. It was through this person that Anand Singh purportedly got in touch with those who allegedly had access to weapons stolen from the police armory over the past few months. This is how he acquired the weapons, obtained a police uniform, and began his operations, the source claimed.
“Anand Singh has been lying dormant for years, but got active when the violence began,” the source added.
A Meitei leader who was part of the protest against the arrest of the five claimed, “These are all village defence volunteers who are in the frontline to protect their community. They are not criminals. We don’t understand why the police arrested them. No such arrests are being made in the hills from where Kukis are attacking on a continued basis.”
Manipur is divided into hill and valley districts, with the former dominated by Kuki and other tribes, while the valley is dominated by the non-tribal Meiteis. Imphal is in the valley. While the hills constitute 90 percent of Manipur’s area, most public facilities are concentrated in the valley.
In the wake of the ethnic clashes between the tribal Kuki and non-tribal Meitei communities — which erupted on 3 May following a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ taken out to oppose the demand for inclusion of Meiteis in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category and for what was described as an effort to secure the rights and constitutional safeguards of the ethnic Kuki and their sub-tribes — village defence committees (VDC) have been formed at the community level across Manipur, purportedly to protect members of one community against attacks from the other.
According to police sources, both the Kukis and Meiteis are using the services of “recycled cadres” of separatist, secessionist and militant outfits who were previously apprehended, or the ones who surrendered, or the ones who deserted, for training VDC volunteers.
Sources in the security establishment also said the violence in the state has resulted in the resurfacing of valley-based insurgent groups who had in the past years gone into hiding.
ThePrint has reached deputy general of police Manipur Rajiv Singh over phone to verify the claims. The report will be updated once a response is received.
‘A new trend’
Meanwhile, following the arrest of the five Meitei men Saturday, an armed mob stormed the Porompat police station in Imphal East Sunday, where the men were detained, demanding that they be released. To disperse the crowd, the police along with central forces, fired tear gas shells.
A crowd again flocked outside the police station the next day, demanding the release of the men and even threatened the police that failure to do so would result in Imphal “going up in flames”, claimed the police.
The Meitei community in Imphal also called for a 48-hour-bandh Tuesday, blocking roads and forcefully shutting all shops in the Manipur capital.
On Thursday, a day before the five received bail, tensions escalated, as a large gathering of local people, armed with sticks, stones and slingshots, gathered outside police stations across five districts in Imphal valley. They breached barricades, vandalised property and even attempted to set houses of policemen on fire, police claimed.
To bring the situation under control, the local police, the riot control force and Assam Rifles lobbed tear gas shells and used lathi charge to disperse the crowd, in which more than 40 people including policemen sustained injuries, sources claimed.
According to police sources, the case of the five Metei men is not the solitary incidence of those not part of the forces donning police uniforms and illegally picking up arms. Many such instances have been allegedly brought to their attention, creating a challenge for the forces.
“We received many inputs of policemen firing at the Kuki community on the fringes. Even some people from the security forces confirmed it to us. We later realised that it is not the police, but miscreants from Imphal valley who have started wearing police uniforms and moving around,” a source in the intelligence claimed.
In the case of these five, police sources said, Anand Singh and his associates sourced their uniform from Paona Bazaar in Imphal.
“Many locals have now started wearing uniforms of police, Manipur Rifles, commandos and it has become a menace. There are many vendors from Paona Bazar and Thangal Bazar in Imphal who have gotten into this business. Since there is no authorised vendor for police uniforms, and no license is required to sell these, it is being misused,” a second police source said.
The source added that many such ‘miscreants’ were spotted with arms that had been allegedly looted from armories in the months of May and June.
“We have now put barricades everywhere to check identity cards. Anyone who is found to be suspicious is checked,” the source said. “These locals are all using weapons that were stolen from armouries.”
Over four months have passed since more than 200 AK-47s, 406 carbines, 551 INSAS rifles, 250 machine guns, and over 6.5 lakh rounds of ammunition were looted from police armouries and stations, primarily in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley. However, there have been no substantial recoveries, leaving significant arsenal in the hands of locals and exacerbating the cycle of violence. According to police data, of the 5,668 stolen sophisticated automatic weapons, only around 1,331 have been recovered so far.
‘Training by old militants’
According to a source in the security establishment, a big challenge in Manipur’s security scenario is the involvement of former cadres of insurgent groups, including people who had surrendered arms, in the attacks against communities.
The source said that many surrendered cadres have started training locals on how to operate weapons.
“There are credible inputs of Meitei civilians being trained in using the weapons that were stolen. These are leaders that had become completely irrelevant but now they have regrouped themselves just like Anand Singh, in this case,” the source said.
These are people who were part of the United National Liberation Front, and other offshoots like the People’s Liberation Front, People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak, Kangleipak Communist Party, Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup, and others. All of them are referred to by security forces as valley-based insurgent groups or VBIGs, the source explained.
‘Return of UGs, a challenge’
Amid the ongoing violence, many VBIGs who were earlier pushed from Manipur have now resurfaced in the state, a second source in the security establishment said, making the situation even more precarious.
These are groups who were staying put in the jungles of Myanmar at the border but have now returned to fight for their community, the source claimed.
“During the initial period of conflict, the VBIGs were supporting their community from across the border with material and moral support. However, the current conflict in Manipur has given them a chance to regroup and regain the public support that they had lost. They realised that this was an opportunity for them to re-establish themselves,” the source said.
The source added: “Several of them have crossed the border [with Myanmar] that is highly porous and largely unfenced to take over their traditional strongholds.”
According to the source, approximately 200 to 250 cadres are said to have been infiltrated into Manipur, going by intelligence reports.
The return of militants is likely to have major security implications, the source said.
“Proliferation of weapons into Manipur may become rampant. Moreover, locals may have easy access to arms training from such cadres of Underground Groups. The same may result in resurgence of insurgency and may cause formation of new outfits having a secessionist agenda,” the source said. “These groups were pushed away from Manipur after tremendous efforts and now it is all back to square one,” the source said.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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