Manipur security adviser Kuldiep Singh said on Friday evening that “full-proof arrangements” were being made to provide “all kinds of protection and security” to the people of the strife-torn state.
His remark came on a day the bodies of nine Meiteis killed in the ongoing conflict were buried in Jiribam.
Addressing reporters after holding a security review meeting with representatives of the army, Manipur police, Assam Rifles, Border Security Force, Sashastra Seema Bal, Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force and the Central Reserve Police Force, Singh said 90 additional companies of central paramilitary forces were being deployed in the state. Till now, 198 companies have been sent to Manipur to contain the unrest, which has claimed 258 lives.
Singh said the prevailing situation was discussed threadbare with the deputy commissioners and the superintendents of police while noting “their concerns”.
“To provide all kinds of protection and security to the citizens, we will be making full-proof arrangements. We will be setting up a district coordination cell and joint control room in each district. We also reviewed the joint control room and coordination apparatus that are already functioning in the state,” Singh said.
Manipur has 16 districts.
“Number of SOPs have been prepared for the deployment of forces, for coordination, for functioning, for fringe area security and national highway security...,” he added.
Singh said the burial of the nine bodies was “peacefully conducted” in Jiribam late in the afternoon “with the help of all the forces present there”.
The bodies were handed over to the families at Assam’s Silchar Medical College and Hospital where the post-mortem was carried out on Friday morning. The deceased included six relief camp inmates and two elderly persons from Borobekra under Jiribam district and a degree student killed in police action during a protest in Jiribam town against the abduction and subsequent killing of the six abducted persons.
The families of the deceased were unwilling to take possession of the bodies unless action was taken against those involved in the killings but a Joint Action Committee (Jiribam) representing the deceased, agreed to the assurance given by chief minister N. Biren Singh “to deliver justice to the victims” during a discussion on Friday evening.
The committee has demanded an all-out operation against those involved in the killings, a government job each for the affected families besides ex gratia and a probe by the National Investigation Agency. The JAC had also demanded that the outfits involved be declared “unlawful”.
Sources said an NIA team visited Borobekra on Saturday.
The six relief camp inmates included three women and three minors who were abducted on November 11 during the attack on the Borobekra police station and a nearby CRPF post by armed militants, according to the police.
Ten suspected militants belonging to the Kuki-Zo community were killed during a gunfight.