Indian Army finds war-like stores in Manipur, seizes arms

New Delhi, October 20

The Army, after having conducted three major successful operations in Manipur, have recovered 132 war-like stores, and seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition, including 36 weapons and 1615 ammunition pieces.

War-like stores’ recovery is considered to be the largest since May 2023. All the seized weapons were handed over to the Manipur Police as per laid down procedure yesterday, as officials confirmed the recovery on Friday.

The three operations were carried out on the ridges of Khamenlok-Gwalthabi, Wakan and Shantipur by the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Regiment of Gorkha Rifles. These ridges form part of the Imphal East in Manipur and separate the different villages of two warring communities.

Intelligence reports were indicative of the build-up of weapons, ammunition and other war-like store caches by both the communities on either side of the ridges, officials said.

The weapons cache were probably being built up by insurgents for attempting to strike in each other’s areas. Army columns at Sagolmang in Imphal East were tasked to carry out extensive surveillance and multiple coordinated search operations on the ridges. The operations were aimed at recovering maximum war-like stores and disrupting any attempts of firing or arson by insurgents and miscreants.