We had written about the likely consequences of a large number of weapons lying around unaccounted for in both the valley and the hills since the outbreak of communal clashes. While law enforcing agencies could not keep track of registered weapons in SoO designated camps and unaccounted arms, both branded and country-made, in the hands of the Kuki militants, these agencies have not been very successful in the recovery of arms and ammunition lying around in the valley.
After the announcement of Lok Sabha elections, the frequency of search operations have dipped and recovery nominal in both the hills and the valley as compared to early days of the operations. Again, the recovery has been mostly of the country-made variety while the branded ones are still at large. There was indeed a lull in violence after the announcement of elections which again started just before the visit of BJP’s top honcho and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to the state. It would be foolish of security agencies to simply shrug away the coincidence with regard to the fresh spurt of violence and one needs to go deeper into it.
The incidents beginning in Pelyang village in Tengnoupal district adjacent to Heirok constituency in Thoubal district injuring two village volunteers and deaths of two militants near Itham Moirangpurel in Imphal East district followed by simultaneous attacks at several fringe villages of the valley and ambush of the oil convoy on Imphal-Jiribam road has all the makings of an orchestrated violence aimed at creating a fear psychosis ahead of the ensuing elections.
There are also incidents of direct threats to candidates by firing at meeting venues by unknown armed miscreants and even intimidation to supporters of candidates excluding that of the ruling party. In short, armed miscreants are freely roaming around in the valley intimidating voters and supporters of other parties, which have largely gone unreported. All the while, neither the Election Commission of India nor the state government are doing nothing to stem this intimidation and attacks.
We had earlier warned about the rise of gun-culture in the state. New challenges have emerged which warrants a change in mindset for evolving a dynamic strategy as regards security management. The old strategies and tactical responses would become obsolete in the new security environment.
While there is a need to establish the rule of law in volatile areas like Churachandpur and Moreh, recovery of arms looted, including from police armouries and country-made weapons at large needs to be taken up in a wider scale with security forces acting as a neutral referee. We had said, the prevailing lack of trust for the security forces among the general populace in the valley needs to be reversed through trust campaigns.
Presently, widespread combing operations are going on in both the hills and the valley under the direction of the Security Advisor. But, the recovery of looted arms is still limited while unaccounted country-made guns seized are plenty. There is also the other issue of unaccounted guns lying around plenty in the hands of young and untrained. Whenever the violence is reduced, the guns seem to be crying for use. As we said before, the story behind the recent incidents of armed robbery, personal vendetta, and shooting incidents needs to be analysed in totality. Sometime back, gunmen fired at an unsuspecting crowd injuring five innocents.
Of course, the persons involved including a former functionary of the ruling party were arrested. There are other incidents of looting by armed persons and firing during drunken stupors between partying friends, hurling bombs or placing bombs at the gates of private residences, armed miscreants loitering around and individuals having political patronage displaying arms and shooting around in resolving disputes or whatever. There might have been numerous unreported incidents involving unaccounted guns also in recent times. Now, these unaccounted guns are being used to influence the election.
