Newly formed group suspected to be behind sniper attack that killed Manipur police officer
Guwahati: Even as Manipur’s security advisor Kuldiep Singh has gone on record saying the sniper and the group involved in the killing of Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Moreh, Chingtham Anand Kumar, have been identified and an all-out effort is underway to nab perpetrators, highly placed sources said that the fatal attack is suspected to be the handiwork of a newly formed group called as the People’s Protection Force (PPF).
The sources, who do not want to be named, said the shooting of the Manipur police officer was executed under the supervision of a commander of a Kuki militant outfit currently under the Suspension of Operations (SoO), a tripartite ceasefire agreement with the state government and the Centre.
While the security advisor stopped short of revealing the identities of the people and group involved in the dastardly act that killed the police officer, they alleged that the PPF, based in Moreh in Manipur, had been planning to ambush the state police’s special commandos deployed to maintain law and order at the border town.
The source revealed that three days ahead of the sniper ambush that killed SDPO Anand, functionaries of the PPF and an apex Kuki civil body of Tengnoupal district engaged in a heated argument with the slain police officer over why the police personnel were clearing the Eastern Shine school ground.
The slain SDPO, along with the 3rd Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) commandant, H Balram, and Superintendent of Police (railways and special commandos), Th. Krishnatombi Singh, was supervising the clearance work of the school ground that started on October 26 to prepare for a helipad.
The sources alleged that after the heated agreement that took place on October 29, a co-founder of the PPF who is an ex-serviceman, along with a commander of the Kuki National Army (KNA), took position near a church at Moreh, and using a brand-new sniper, procured from the Thailand border, shot the SDPO.
The source further revealed that miscreants at Moreh are extorting money from the local residents to buy ammunition, sophisticated weapons, particularly snipers, and also to bring in master trainers from Myanmar into the Indian soil to train the Chin-Kuki youths as PPF volunteers.
Moreover, the sources said that the recruits are being sheltered and given arms training at Haolenphai and Sahei, the two Kuki villages lying along the India-Myanmar international border on the Indian side at Moreh.
They said that the extortion drive in its initial campaign could manage to extort a whopping Rs 8.7 crore. According to them, the extortion order was issued by an influential Chin-Kuki body based at Moreh, under the authority of its president.
It also alleged that sophisticated weapons like snipers, assault rifles, rocket propellers and explosives, were recently purchased from Thailand and China.
A second batch of arms training of PPF volunteers is reportedly underway at Haolenphai and Sahei. It is stated that the KNA commander involved in the sniper ambush was called in to supervise the training of the PPF.
