The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Sophisticated weapons such as M16s, M18s and M4A1 Carbines are being used in the ethnic conflict in Manipur.
These advanced weapons are not part of the weapons cache that have been looted from the state armoury, reported The Indian Express.
Officials have said that 30 per cent of the weapons that have been recovered by security forces from the conflict are of this nature.
While more than 6,000 weapons have been looted from state armouries during the course of the conflict, so far more than 2,600 weapons have been recovered. But only 1,200 recovered weapons are those which were looted from the state armoury and 600 were country-made crude weapons, more than 800 sophisticated weapons have been found.
“The Meiteis have access to good quality weapons – automatic and long-range ones – through valley-based insurgent groups, and there are also the weapons from the armouries. The Kukis also have access to a similar calibre of automatic weapons because of the SoO groups,” an official told The Indian Express.
Among the other types of weapons which are being used in the conflict and have added to the concerns of security forces include crude bomb-carrying drones and improvised mortars called pumpis.
Officials say that militants have built rockets that can travel up to 5-7 km, improvised their existing weaponry, and modernised the old ones, reported Hindustan Times.
Ethnic violence began in the state in May 2023, and has been going on ever since – killing hundreds, displaces tens of thousands and sharply dividing the state along ethnic lines.
Audio tapes put out in the public domain by The Wire after they were submitted to the Commission of Inquiry for Manipur Violence set up by the Union home ministry appear to implicate chief minister N. Biren Singh and his administration directly in the violence. Biren, whose administration has claimed the tapes are “doctored”, has been under considerable pressure to respond to them.