Day before deadline, a few arms given up in Manipur

Less than 300 weapons and around 3,500 pieces of ammunition have been surrendered with just a day left before Manipur governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla's seven-day amnesty for the voluntary surrender of looted weapons and munitions ends, multiple security officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.

- Prawesh Lama

NEW DELHI:

The numbers are extremely low given that at least 6,500 weapons and over 600,000 pieces of ammunition, including mortars and grenades, were looted from armouries across the state by civilians and militant groups in both valley and hill areas within months of ethnic violence breaking out in the state in May 2023.

To be sure, the exact count of looted weapons and shells was submitted to the Supreme Court by the state government in a sealed cover.

The forces have till date recovered not more than 1,800 weapons from this lot, the officials cited above said. The state security adviser Kuldiep Singh in September 2024 told reporters that forces had recovered 1,200 looted weapons till that time; the government has not revealed any official numbers since then.

Officials said a bulk of the arms and ammunition -- these include AK series rifles, light machine guns, mortars, grenades, MP5 sub-machine guns, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of ammunition -- are still in possession of civilian and militant groups.