New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Manipur Police have jointly arrested one person from the state’s Churachandpur district on charges of waging a war against the state in what authorities say is a case of “transnational conspiracy” by terror outfits based in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India.
Seiminlun Gangte was arrested Saturday on the back of a case registered in New Delhi on 19 July in connection with the ethnic clashes in the state. According to law enforcement authorities, he has been brought back to the national capital and will be produced before a court.
The arrest comes as Manipur continues to see violence nearly five months after ethnic clashes first erupted between the state’s Meitei and tribal Kuki populations. Over 170 people have been killed and over 50,000 people have been displaced in the clashes that first erupted on 3 May.
In a press statement it issued, the NIA said that Myanmar- and Bangladesh-based militants had “entered into a conspiracy with a section of militant leaders in India to indulge in incidents of violence with an intention to drive a wedge between different ethnic groups and to wage war against the Government of India”.
“And for this purpose, the aforementioned leadership have been providing funds to procure arms, ammunition and other types of terrorist hardware which are being sourced both, from across the border, as well as from other terrorist outfits active in North Eastern States of India to stoke the current ethnic strife in Manipur,” the statement went on to say, adding that investigations are ongoing.