IMPHAL, Oct 25: In the continuing operations to recover illegal and looted arms, Manipur police on Wednesday recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition in a joint operation with central security forces in Thoubal district.
The recovered items were seven arms (one INSAS 5.56 mm Rifle, two 62 SLR rifle, one 40 mm lathode gun and three 9 mm Pistol), eight hand grenades (seven 36 hand grenades and one Chinese grenade), 27 live rounds of different types, 28 magazines of different types, one each of tear smoke grenade, stun grenade, 40 mm Lathode shell and other items.
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The police said that the cache was recovered during an operation by a combined team of state police commandos and BSF at Chandrakhong area under Nongpok Sekmai police station on Wednesday morning.
In the operation started around 2.30 am and lasted till 6 am, about 160 houses were searched thoroughly and verified around 600 people.
The combined force also conducted a search in the foothills adjoining areas of Chandrakhong like Phajakhong and Salam Patong intensively.
The cache of arms and ammunition were found hidden at Salam Patong area to avoid detection by security forces, the police said.
The state police and the central security forces are conducting intensified search operations in the strife-hit districts of the state to recover arms and ammunition looted from the police and state forces in the wake of ethnic violence.
A total of 5,669 different types of sophisticated arms and lakh of different kinds of rounds of ammunition were looted by mobs and individuals after violence broke out on May 3.
Till September, around 1,344 of the looted arms and thousands of rounds of ammunition were recovered and to recover the arms still in the possessions, the police and security forces have been conducting intensified search operations since last week September.
The operations were conducted after the state government, on September 22 last, warned to surrender the illegal and looted weapons within 15 days.
The violence in Manipur between Meitei and Kuki communities was triggered on May 3 and has since left at least 175 people dead and over 50,000 people displaced apart from torching thousands of houses belonging to both the communities. (NNN)
