Chief of Army Staff General Dalbir Singh on Wednesday visited the site where one JCO and five jawans of the Assam Rifles were killed in an insurgent attack last Sunday, and asked the troops to carry out relentless operations against the insurgent groups active in the region. General Singh, accompanied by Lt General Praveen Bakshi, Army Commander of the eastern Command, who arrived in Imphal on Wednesday morning, visited the 29 Assam Rifles Battalion headquarters at Joupi in Chandel district, during which he took stock of the situation. Security forces have held CorCom – a combined force of three groups PLA, UNLF and PREPAK that are based in the Imphal valley – for the May 22 attack. Issuing a strong warning to the insurgent groups, General Singh said “such acts of violence by insurgents strengthen our resolve to continue operations against insurgent groups with an aim to ensure lasting peace and prosperity in the region.” The jawans were killed when they came under attack not far from their Battalion HQ at Joupi as they were returning after assessing a landslide near Hollengjang under Tegnoupal police station on May 22. [related-post] The Army Chief was briefed on the incident including the combing operations in progress and the measures undertaken to neutralise the insurgent group involved in the attack, a press release issued by the Assam Rifles in Imphal said. General Singh stressed on the need to further carryout relentless operations against the insurgents active in the region, it added. It was in the same district in Manipur that armed insurgents had killed 18 personnel of the 6 Dogra Regiment on June 5 last year. The NSCN(K) had subsequently claimed that the ambush was carried out by an “elite strike unit” comprising of rebels from the Naga Army, Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP).
