Manipur extremists may go for drone warfare

Seizure of flight batteries and drone parts in Assam raises concerns about escalating ethnic conflict in Manipur.

GUWAHATI

The seizure of 10 intelligent flight batteries from a Manipur-based man in a vehicle at a toll gate about 30 km east of Guwahati on June 14 warned the Assam Police of “something brewing” in the ethnic conflict-scarred State bordering civil war-torn Myanmar.

The suspicion was strengthened when, a day later, another person was caught from Guwahati’s Rupnagar area carrying drone parts on a two-wheeler.

If 27-year-old Khaigoulen Kipgen of Gamngai village in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district, apprehended at the Sonapur toll gate, was found to have links with Kuki-Zo extremist groups, police said the parts seized from Sanjib Kumar Mishra in Guwahati were destined for Meitei outfits involved in the conflict.

“These seizures following reliable input about the unauthorised transportation of drones and related equipment for armed groups on either side of the ethnic divide in Manipur could be the tip of the iceberg,” an Assam Police officer of the Inspector General rank said.

He did not rule out the possibility of intelligent flight batteries and drone parts slipping through checkpoints on the arterial National Highway 27 leading to Manipur via Nagaland, and an alternative route from Silchar in southern Assam’s Barak Valley.

A few days ago, Lieutenant General Pradeep Chandran Nair, the Director-General of the paramilitary Assam Rifles, said that some 5,400 refugees from Myanmar in Manipur’s Kamjong district feared aerial bombardment and attacks.