90 additional companies of Central forces reach Manipur, over 3,000 looted arms recovered: Officials

Imphal, Nov 22 (IANS) With the escalating violence in Manipur, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has provided an additional 90 companies of Central forces while the security forces so far recovered 3,000 arms looted by mobs and other inimical groups since the ethnic violence broke out in May last year, a top official said on Friday.

Chief Security Advisor to the Manipur government Kuldiep Singh said that the additional Central forces would be deployed in the vulnerable, sensitive, fringe and mixed population areas.

A sizable number of Central forces have already arrived in Manipur and more are coming to the state, Singh told the media after a security review meeting.

He said that in the security review meeting, attended by senior officials of the Army, the Assam Rifles, the BSF, the CRPF, the SSB, and the ITBP, besides the Manipur Police, the latest situation of the state was reviewed and several standard operating procedures (SOPs) were finalised for the security forces.

Singh, a former Director General of the Central Reserve Police Force, said that the joint control room and joint coordination committee in each of the 16 districts would be made proactive and their functioning would be regularly and closely monitored.

"We would provide full protection to the people. Our priority is to protect the lives and properties of all citizens," the official said.

He said that so far 3,000 looted arms were recovered and operations are going on to recover the remaining looted arms and ammunition.

A senior police official earlier said that after the ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities began on May 3 last year, 5,669 different types of sophisticated arms and lakhs of rounds of different kinds of ammunition were looted by different organisations, mobs and individuals.

The Chief Security Advisor said that the National Investigation Agency has started investigations into all the cases handed over to them.

In recent cases of violence, public unrest and mob attacks on around two dozen houses and bungalows of ministers, MLAs and political leaders, till now 32 persons have been arrested from different districts, especially in Imphal East and Imphal West districts. After the news spread about the recovery of six bodies in Jiribam, widespread attacks and violence by mobs occurred in several districts on November 16 and 17, leading authorities to impose a curfew and suspend mobile internet.

--IANS

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