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Manipur extends deadline to give up arms till Mar 6
The earlier appeal, issued on February 20 asked people to surrender illegal weapons within seven days.
IMPHAL: Manipur governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Friday, extended the deadline for the surrender of looted and illegal weapons until 4pm on March 6, citing requests for an extension, and in the backdrop of a tepid response to an earlier ultimatum for the surrender of arms.
An order on the extension issued on Friday, stated that the extension was granted in response to demands from people in both the hills and the valley.
“Upon the expiry of the seven-day deadline for the voluntary surrender of arms, there have been requests from both the valley and hill areas to extend the period. I have considered these requests and decided to extend the deadline until 4 PM on March 6,” it said.
Following the outbreak of ethnic violence in the state in May 2023, mobs looted weapons from state armories, police stations, and outposts. To date, approximately 2,500 of the estimated 6,000 looted weapons have been recovered.
The earlier appeal, issued on February 20 asked people to surrender illegal weapons within seven days. On the seventh day (Thursday), Arambai Tenggol, a Meitei group, deposited 246 weapons at the 1st Manipur Rifles campus.
The order further assured that no punitive action would be taken against those who surrender their weapons within this period, emphasizing that “this is the last opportunity for everyone concerned to contribute to peace, communal harmony, the future of our youth, and the security of our society.”
After the seven-day deadline set by Bhalla on February 20, a total of 705 arms, 9,743 ammunition and 320 explosives were surrendered, Manipur police said in a statement issued on Friday. 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 the ethnic violence. 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 violence has claimed at least 260 lives, displaced around 60,000 people, and forced Meiteis and Kukis to withdraw to their respective strongholds. The Meiteis, mostly Hindu, primarily inhabit the Imphal Valley plains, while the Kukis, predominantly Christian, reside in the hills. Fortified buffer zones now separate the two communities.
The surrender of arms comes after the imposition of President’s Rule, following the resignation of N. Biren Singh as Chief Minister of Manipur. His resignation came days after the Supreme Court ordered a central forensic lab report on leaked audio tapes that Kuki groups allege show Singh’s role in the ethnic violence.
