More central security forces have been sent to Manipur
The centre has sent over 900 more security personnel to ethnic violence-hit Manipur amid rising tensions, three months after clashes broke out between the Kuki-Zo-Chin tribes and the Meiteis.
A senior police officer said the Home Ministry has sent 10 more companies - or some 900 personnel - of the paramilitary forces CRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSB to Manipur. They arrived in the state capital Imphal on Saturday night. They are being deployed in several districts of the northeast state.
After ethnic violence broke out on May 3, the Defence Ministry and the Home Ministry deployed over 40,000 personnel of the army, the paramilitary Assam Rifles, and various Central Armed Police Force (CAPF).
Both the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an umbrella body of the Meitei community, and the leading Kuki groups Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF) and Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM), have been accusing that the state police forces and a section of the central forces of playing partisan roles.
Some women organisations are creating obstacles for independent operations of the security forces, sources said, adding they often put up roadblocks to delay the movement of the CAPFs and state forces.
Some media reports show women seeking the identity of central police personnel due to distrust and allegations that some elements of the forces are playing partisan roles.
A Manipur Police statement said the security forces have so far recovered 1,195 looted arms and 14,322 various types of ammunition from across the state.
Since the violence began on May 3, over 4,000 sophisticated arms and lakhs of different types of ammunition have been looted from police stations and outposts by mobs and insurgents.