Manipur FIRs tell a story: How armoury after armoury came on mob radar

The FIRs have been filed on suo motu basis or by security personnel in police stations in Imphal East and West, Bishnupur, Thoubal, Kakching and Churachandpur districts. Most pertain to armories located in the state’s valley areas, while nine pertain to incidents in the hill district of Churachandpur.

The most heated encounter described between security personnel and mobs is from an attempt to loot the 3rd IRB Battalion, Khangabok in Thoubal district on July 4. One member of the mob was killed, while three BSF personnel and one Assam Rifles were injured in the incident, and three FIRs were registered at Thoubal police station by the police, the BSF and Assam Rifles, respectively.

The FIRs mention that as many as 3,000 people had mobbed the battalion and that when a combined force of district police, IRB personnel and BSF tried to disperse the mob using “minimal force”, they retaliated with “live rounds and grenades”. The FIRs describe a face-off that continued for more than six hours in which Assam Rifles joined later, and state that the mob used petrol bombs while security personnel fired in the air. The BSF FIR states that BSF personnel fired 290 shots. Significantly, the mob was not successful in seizing arms from the campus.

Most of these FIRs describe the looting of armories in the first few days of the violence as well as during the second phase of violence which began on May 28.

The FIR registered in connection with one of the biggest such lootings – the seizure of arms and ammunition from the Manipur Police Training College in Pangei on May 4 – states that “a large mob of 5,000 miscreants wielding arms and lethal weapons” entered the campus and “overpowered the sentries on duty”. In that incident, the FIR states, the seized weapons included 175 INSAS rifles, 98 SLRs, 22 INSAS LMGs, 1 AK-47 and 91 .303 Rifles.

Weapons were seized from the same campus yet again on May 28. This time, the FIR registered stated that “many rounds were blank fired” by the campus sentry and guards, but that they were still “overpowered” by an “unruly mob” of “4,000 to 5,000” armed with “lethal weapons like AK, SLR, etc.”

Nearly all the FIRs describing mobs successfully seizing arms from the establishments state that personnel were “overpowered”. An example is an FIR registered in connection with the seizing of 15 SLRs, a .303 Rifle, an INSAS Rifle, 20 smoke grenades and several rounds of ammunition from Wangoo Police station in Kakching district on May 28. It states that a mob of 1,500 “barged inside the police station in the morning”. It describes the encounter as follows:

“When the police personnel tried to control the mob, they overpowered and marched inside the police station… Some of them broke open the lock of the station’s malkhana using a hammer and barged inside the quarters. Police personnel tried to intervene and control the mob but they became very unruly. Subsequently, they looted and took away some weapons with ammunition…”

Another FIR registered in connection with the mobbing of Churachandpur police station on the night of May 4 states that “several rounds of ammunition were fired in the air”, yet a mob managed to loot arms and free three people who had been placed in police custody in the lock-up. Stating that police personnel were “outnumbered” due to their (the mob’s) “large number and aggressive behaviors”, the FIR added that three AKs, twp .303 Rifles, two INSAS Rifles, an SLR and three 9mm pistols were seized along with ammunition in 30 minutes.

According to records, over 4,000 arms have been seized from armories in Manipur since violence began, though some have been recovered since.