IMPHAL (The Thursday Times) — Security forces have recovered a nearly 10-foot-long rocket, four Chinese-made mortars, six improvised explosive devices, and other weapons from a jungle in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, police said on Thursday.
A joint team of district police and the Indian Army found the cache on Wednesday during an intelligence-based search around P Geljang village in the Kangvai sub-division, according to a police statement.
The haul included four 82mm mortars of Chinese origin, a rocket about 10 feet long and weighing 80kg, six IEDs, five Chinese grenades, and 30 mortar bombs of 82mm and 51mm calibre. Police also listed a carbine machine gun, a pistol, two single-barrel rifles, and five rounds of ammunition.
Police did not say whom the weapons belonged to or whether anyone had been arrested.
A district at the centre of the conflict
Churachandpur, where the Kuki-Zo community is in the majority, has been one of the centres of the ethnic conflict that broke out in May 2023 between the valley-based Meitei and hill-based Kuki communities. The violence has killed at least 306 people, left 49 missing, and displaced thousands, according to official figures cited in reports.
Thousands of weapons were looted from police armouries in the early months of the violence, and security forces regularly report seizures in both the hills and the valley. Clashes between Kuki and Naga communities have also been reported in recent months.
The recovery came a day after a Kuki tribal body began sit-in protests in Kangpokpi district over the abduction and killing of two youths.
