Thursday’s violence in Manipur also witnessed arms loot, yet again; Nearly 4000 weapons have been looted so far since turmoil started in May

The violence that ensued on Thursday at Bishnupur in Manipur witnessed ugly clashes leading to injury of several people but worst was several arms and ammunition were looted by miscreants, yet again. Assault rifles, mortars among arms, ammunition looted from IRB camp by a mob of around 500 people on Thursday. So far around 4000 weapons and nearly 500000 rounds of ammunition have been looted from state armoury, police stations since the ethnic clashes started in May this year. IRB has lodged an official complaint with the police. The complaint was registered with Moirang Police Station.

In his complaint, Premananda Singh, 2nd IRB battalion quarter master wrote that miscreants overpowered the sentry at the main gate and the quarter guard after attacking the camp around 9:45am on Thursday.
“They broke two of the doors of battalion armed Kote and looted a large number of arms, ammunition, munitions, and other accessories”… wrote Singh in his complaint, adding that 320 rounds of ammunition and 20 tear smoke shells were fired to control the mob.


An Annexure elaborating the number of arms and ammunition looted, listed assault rifles, pistols, magazines, mortars, detonators, hand grenades, bombs, carbines, light machine guns, and over 19,000 rounds of ammunition. It also highlighted that one AK series assault rifle, 25 INSAS rifles, 4 Ghatak rifles, 5 INSAS LMGs, 5 MP-5 rifles, 124 hand grenades, 21 SMC carbines, 195 SLRs, 16 9mm pistols, 134 detonators, 23 GF rifles, 81 51mm HE bombs were looted by the attackers.

In separate incidents, there were clashes reported when security forces had fired tear gas shells to thwart mobs, from entering into Manipur Rifles battalion at Kabo Leikai and Khabeisoi areas in Imphal East district and the Singjamei police station. 17 people including women were reportedly injured in Thursday’s violence. State Government has imposed curfew in Imphal East and West districts without any relaxation for now. Thursday’s violence happened over the dispute with people from Churachandpur planning to hold mass burial at a area near the plains and the protesters from Bishnupur wanted to resist that claiming it was an attempt to hijack their land. Even though the mass burial was postponed after the intervention of the MHA and that was also announced in public, yet people descended in Bishnupur district in huge number to demonstrate. They were stopped by forces from making any progress to the disputed burial site but eventually massive violence erupted and mob was seen pelting stones at the forces. The fresh arms loot in Bishnupur happened amidst the violence on Thursday.

In June this year ahead of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit around 3000 weapons were looted from state armoury, handful of them were later recovered by the state government.