The rise in violence has forced senior ministers and officials of the state Government to conduct a series of Cabinet meeting since Sunday. According to sources, the Cabinet has asked the state Home Department to find ways to tackle the rising violence even as security forces gunned down two suspected militants in separate incidents. Governor S S Sidhu has also met top officials, including the Chief Minister, the Director General of Police, Principal Secretary (Home) and the Chief Secretary, to express his concern over the current trend. Violence has gone up since the past two months due to stepped up counter-insurgency operations. In retribution, the number of ambushed and skirmishes on the security forces have increased, resulting in the death of over a dozen militants and around eight security personnel. To add to this, police sources said a “factional clean-up” had begun between the various splinter groups of the PREPAK, which has shown in the increase in “executions”. Since the visit of Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta last week, during which it was collectively decided to step up counter-insurgency operations in the state, five youth have been shot dead, execution style, at a village in Imphal (East) alone. Senior police sources said the victims were part of the inter-factional clashes. In the midst of all this, three engineers of the Public Health Engineering Department are also missing. While the police has registered a suo moto case in the absence of any complainants, the engineers have allegedly been kidnapped by the Kuki Revolutionary Army.On top of this, the Revolutionary People’s Front — the political wing of the PLA — has begun enforcing its anti-tobacco products drive after setting a deadline of October 15 for paan vendors and related businesspersons to stop dealing in tobacco and betel leaf. In this regard, the RPF has already claimed responsibility for shooting a betel leaf vendor from Bihar and is suspected to be behind the killing of another non-local believed to be connected to the tobacco trade. The outfit’s cadres also confiscated around Rs 15 lakh worth of betel leaves that had arrived by flight from the Indian Airlines’ cargo facility in the heart of the city and consigned the same to flames.
