Unidentified armed cadres looted several arms and a large quantity of ammunition from an outpost of the Manipur Rifles in the state’s Thoubal district, officials said on Sunday.
A police official said that a local armed group came in three vehicles and looted at least six SLRs, three AK rifles, and many different types of ammunition, along with 12 magazines, from the Manipur Rifles outpost at Kakmayai area of Thoubal on Saturday night.
The armed cadres first overpowered the Manipur Rifles personnel and looted the arms and ammunition at gunpoint.
Soon after the incident, additional security forces, led by senior police officials, rushed to the area and launched a massive combing operation to nab the armed attackers and to recover the arms and ammunition.
Various official and unofficial reports said that during the ethnic riots, which broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, over 6,000 different types of sophisticated arms and lakhs of diverse ammunition were looted from the police stations and police outposts by the mobs, attackers and militants.
However, a significant number of looted arms and ammunition have been recovered so far and searches by the Central and state security forces are on to recover the remaining weapons.
These arms have been playing a very critical role in exacerbating the violence in Manipur with both village volunteers and militants in both valley and hilly areas possessing huge sophisticated arms and ammunition.
Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, Home Department and many other political dignitaries on a number of occasions urged the looters to return the looted arms and ammunition to the police, otherwise, the appropriate authorities would take legal action.
Meanwhile, police arrested three militants from Imphal West District and recovered some pistols, two two-wheelers, and a few mobile sets from them. Police officials said that all three militants were directly involved in forcible extortion from villagers, government officials, contractors, shopkeepers and businessmen.
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