Imphal: When a raging mob of thousands of men allegedly stormed the Manipur Police Training Centre at Pangei in Imphal East at 2.30 pm on 4 May, the lone guard at the gate watched helplessly. Armed with metal cutters, stones and sticks, the mob allegedly cut the lock, barged inside the huge compound and moved straight towards the armoury.
Twenty guards on duty panicked and fired blank bullets, but they were outnumbered. The men allegedly kicked open the door, stole everything they could lay their hands on — including dummy guns used in training police personnel — and walked away with the inventory register. Some of them drove away on scooters or even three-wheelers, sources said.
What happened at Pangei was repeated over the following month with arms reportedly being looted from police battalions and stations at multiple locations in Manipur. Though the lootings were primarily concentrated in the valley area dominated by the Meiteis, a few incidents also occurred in the hill district of Churachandpur, which is primarily inhabited by Kukis.
The looting continued till around the time of Union Home Minister’s Amit Shah four-day visit to the state beginning 29 May.
Often, according to sources familiar with the incidents, police guards willingly handed over the keys to the mob without firing a single shot. In most cases, the registers recording the weapon inventory were destroyed or stolen.
But in a few instances, they added, the men in the mobs handed over their Aadhaar cards to the guards — their ethnic kinsfolk — assuring them that they would return the weapons once the fight was over.
To find the stolen arms, the Manipur Police are groping in the dark. With the inventory records in most of the units — which were manually filled in — missing, they don’t know how many weapons have landed in the hands of untrained mobs.
Many of the looted weapons, a police source said to ThePrint, were single- and double-bore rifles seized by the police from criminals and ethnic militias over many decades. “We have no idea exactly how many of which weapons have been looted,” a senior officer said, adding, “until we are able to restore some kind of order and rebuild our records, we just won’t know.”
“The lootings happened because Meiteis are angry and insecure. When the riots started, they realised that the Kukis had sophisticated weapons while they were unarmed. That is why they stole weapons,” said a senior officer in the central forces, requesting anonymity.
To recover the stolen weapons, the Manipur Police are starting a massive combing operation, which Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced last Thursday. And to prevent further looting, the remaining weapons have been stored under the watch of the CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) and RAF (Rapid Action Force), said Kuldiep Singh, security adviser to the Manipur government.
Singh is hopeful that more weapons will be found in the combing operation. “Arms have been snatched not only in Imphal, but in Churachandpur also. We are advising the police that a combing operation should start immediately,” he said.
ThePrint visited the offices of DGP Rajiv Singh and ADGP (intelligence) A.K. Sinha, but they were not available for comment.
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Multiple robberies, police without guns
Surrounded by stadiums and sports complexes, two unbarricaded roads lead to the barracks of the 9th Mahila India Reserve Battalion (IRB) at Khuman Lampak in Imphal East. Two guards posted at the entrance of the complex are unarmed, having had their pistols stolen by looters.
Inside the building, two women personnel guard a locked room in a corner that also has wards for residents. On the evening of 4 May, the mob attacked this armoury as well.
“I can confirm that the looting happened. I was not present there that evening, but I received information that the mob had about 1,000 men,” said Khoisnam Sarma Devi, commandant, 9th Mahila IRB.
She blamed the local police for failing to prevent the robbery. “The mob came from the road. It is a total failure of law and order by the police,” she said.
According to the Bureau of Police Research and Development, Manipur has a sanctioned police strength of 25,080 and an actual strength of 28,894 police. Of these, 15,200 are in the civil police, 6,236 in the armed police (all sorts) and 7,458 in the IRB, which are centrally-funded state police units.
There is one police officer per 108.98 citizens on the rolls, which is the highest in the country after Nagaland and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As in most states, expenditure on the police makes up a modest share of Manipur’s budge, accounting for Rs 1,901 crore of Rs 20,222 crore in 2021.
In Pangei, besides the police training centre, the premises of 7th Manipur Rifles (MR) and the 6th IRB, which are in the vicinity, were also looted on 4 May. Roadblocks were put up and a company of the Central Reserve Police Force was stationed at the training centre, but for the mob, these were no challenges. They attacked the police training centre and the 6th IRB’s premises a second time on 28 May.
Within a span of 24 days, seven more locations in the jurisdiction of Heingang police station — under which Pangei training centre, the 7th MR and 6th IRB all fall — were looted, according to sources in the Manipur Police.
The greatest destruction happened at the premises of the 7th MR, where the arms of the 1st battalion and the 8th IRB were also stored.
In Heingang — Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s assembly constituency since 2017 — the police station looks like an abandoned building. Its armoury was also looted 4 May, leaving its staff without any weapons.
“Even the police station was robbed. The security guard was beaten up and his gun was taken away. Ten First Information Reports (FIRs) have been filed on all the robberies, but the investigation is at a nascent stage. We are still trying to find out how many weapons were stolen from all these centres. The record registers were also taken away,” said a member of staff at the police station.
Meanwhile, government sources and eyewitnesses in Churachandpur told ThePrint that ethnic Kuki groups took back weapons surrendered during negotiations with the central government, and left their designated zones where they were supposed to stay under the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement, both to guard villages and expel Meiteis.
It’s feared that the looted weapons are being widely used in the ongoing clashes. Over the past weekend, 16 men — all Meitei — were reported to have been injured in exchange of fire at Phayeng, a village on the border between the Meitei-dominated Imphal valley and the Kuki-dominated hills that surround it.
Multiple sources in Imphal and Churachandpur alleged that in the valley, the mobs mainly comprised Meitei men, while lootings in the hill districts were orchestrated by Kuki men. Both the communities are now possibly in possession of AK47s, INSAS rifles, .303 rifles, carbines, grenades, tear gas shells and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
‘Not a bullet was fired’
Police units are required to keep a close watch on their arms and ammunition. There is an on-paper record of each weapon, including who it is issued to and when it is returned. An extra layer of security is added for small arms as these can be easily hidden and taken away, unlike big guns.
But often, said a source in the central forces, the authorities become careless while guarding the armoury. “The police staff are overburdened. They do not have the manpower to keep meticulous records of the inventory,” said the source.
Also, on 4 May, as violence was rising in Imphal, most of the personnel were deployed at different locations in the city and the police stations had skeletal staff.
Meanwhile, the source cited above added that when the riots started on 3 May, the sentiment that the Meiteis would be crushed by the Kukis — who were thought to have sophisticated weapons — was strong. This may have resulted in little resistance from the police guards.
“The keys of the armoury were with the local staff of the police units, most of whom were Meiteis. In some cases, it was a friendly handover of the weapons. No shots were fired at the mob who were stealing such sophisticated weapons,” said the source.
On 3 May evening, a private weapons shop was looted in Churachandpur, allegedly by Kukis. The CCTV footage of the shop, which ThePrint also watched, shows three armed men inside the shop. At first, they can be seen asking the shopkeeper for weapons on display. Then one of them jumps over the counter and starts taking out boxes of ammunition. More men come in and start hitting the CCTV cameras with catapults.
On the afternoon of 4 May, a police training centre and several other police stations were also looted in Churachandpur, with the entry registers being torn.
“These centres are heavily guarded by armed guards. Yet, when the mob came, not a bullet was fired. This type of looting has happened for the first time and raises suspicion,” said a senior government official who did not wish to be named.
Combing operation
With armouries empty of weapons, the police are now approaching Meitei leaders and civil society organisations to reach out to their communities and have the weapons handed over. Many weapons have indeed been recovered this way.
The weapons started appearing behind trees, in paddy fields, behind houses and in abandoned places. And the police were informed by anonymous callers about their location.
“Many of the men who took the weapons don’t know how to use them. They don’t even know how to change the magazine. So, many of the weapons were returned eventually,” said a source from the police training college in Pangei.
The Heingang police confirmed that many of the weapons stolen on 4 May have been recovered. But those stolen on 28 May are still nowhere to be found, said the staff.
“If people have stolen these weapons, how long can they hide them? What justification would you give if an automatic weapon is found in the house? They are scared that once the combing operation starts, they will be caught. Now more weapons will come out this way,” a policeman added.
Meanwhile, Meitei leader K. Athouba of the Coordination Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), a collective of Meitei civil society organisations, explained that the looting is linked to the intensity of fights between the Kukis and the Meiteis.
“Most of the looting happened in the first week of May. More than 2,140 weapons were stolen from four police stations, out of which 800 to 900 were returned in the second week of May when things became normal in Imphal as most of the Meiteis were evacuated by 10 May,” he said.
As shooting intensified again on 23 May, said Athouba, so did the lootings. “Kukis intensified attacks in all the villages after the announcement of the visit of Minister of State Nityanand Rai. The locals (Meiteis) here started looting again,” he claimed.
Between 26 and 27 May, the 7th MR at Khabeisoi and Katching police station were both looted, according to Athouba’s knowledge. In Bishnupur, there was a failed attempt to loot an IRB. “The lootings were (done) out of anxiety. Meitei local youth have the weapons, but no planning or coordination. There is no commander. They are just moving in a mob and shooting,” Athouba said.
If the government wants the guns back, he added, then they should be able to stop the Kukis militants from shooting. “People want to surrender guns. But they need assurance from the government that their areas will be protected,” he said.
Last Thursday, home minister Shah announced that the Manipur Police would soon start a combing operation and people found with weapons would be severely punished. “We have information about the stolen arms. We have asked people to surrender them. Many of these have already been recovered. In the combing operation, strict action will be taken against whoever is found with weapons,” Shah said in Imphal.
Those at the barracks from where weapons were stolen are now sending letters to the police headquarters for additional security and CCTV cameras. They are also putting together an estimated number of arms stolen, but this is turning out to be tough since the records are missing.
In the Pangei area, policemen are out making public announcements with local leaders and asking people to deposit weapons. At the police training centre there, chains are still dangling from the metal gate, but without a lock. The premises have no more weapons left to protect.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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